President Bush has made so many utterly dumb statements during his eight years in office that K-Tel could compile a best-selling greatest-hits album. But nothing the Moron-in-Chief has said in the past is more idiotic, more outrageous, more offensive and more patently dishonest than his comments Thursday before the Israeli Knesset during his trip there to commemorate the country's 60th anniversary of independence.
Without any concern for historical accuracy or accusations of political pandering, Bush firmly injected himself and the White House squarely into the 2008 presidential campaign by attempting to further the myth that Democratic front runner Sen. Barack Obama would be weak on national security:
"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Shame on him. This sort of incendiary rhetoric coming from the President of the United States is dangerous and infuriating. It not only underscores just how despicably dirty the Repugs intend to play between now and November 4th, but it highlights the irony of the past eight years as well. The truth is, Bush/Cheney's foreign policy has done more harm to America and has weakened the U.S's national security more than anything. The invasion of Iraq has greatly invigorated and strengthened Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Al Qeada in their collective hatred and militancy towards the U.S. and Israel. And during Bush/Cheney, Osama bin Laden, the murderous beast who killed 4000 of our innocent civilians, has be allowed to roam the mountains of Pakistan, releasing more videos during this time than P.Diddy.
Bush's invoking of the Nazis and the Holocaust--just as he and the Rovians have conflated Iraq and al Qaada since the 9/11 attacks--is an insult to every Jew, Israeli and American. To stand before the Israeli Knesset on this most celebrated occasion to draw parallels between then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Adolph Hitler and Obama is nothing short of disgusting. To use the Israeli Parliamentary pulpit to spew this highly politicized partisan crap is a stain on the Oval Office and, to put it bluntly, a real cheap fucking shot.
Adding insult to injury, the GOP's presumptive nominee and Bush's fellow fear-monger Sen. John McCain hopped on the bandwagon just a couple of weeks after making his own highly inflammatory and irresponsible remarks about Obama and Hamas: "Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain," McCain said. Asked if he thought Obama was an appeaser for statements he supposedly made (but did not) about opening a dialogue directly with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, McCain danced around the question with: "I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That's what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people."
The hypocrisy in Bush's remarks is incredible, as he seems to be forgetting his own covert peace negotiations with Libya's brutal dictator and avowed terrorist Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the man admittedly responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Or what about President Richard M. Nixon's cold-war reaching out to China, or President Ronald Reagan's dealings with the Soviet Union? As President John F. Kennedy famously said, "Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear negotiation." Only a reckless, foolish cowboy swings first and talks second. But that's our Bush....brought to you by a 71% disapproval rating, the lowest in modern history.
Even if Obama said (which he didn't) that a U.S president should dialogue directly with the leaders of America's enemy countries, what's wrong with that? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? There's a really big difference between talking and appeasement. Chamberlain greatly miscalculated during the period 1937-1939 when he pursued a policy of appeasement in an effort to contain Adolf Hitler by foolishly allowing the Nazi murderer to waltz through and occupy Czechoslovakia as part of the Munich Agreement. But merely talking with your enemy is not appeasement. Bush knows this, of course, but his appetite for pandering to America's Jews during a critical election year is just too insatiable. But will Jews in Broward Country , Florida and elsewhere buy this fear-mongering bullshit yet again? Who knows. But the impact on Obama, already under intense scrutiny by Jewish voters and evangelicals over Israel, could be significant, and is clearly becoming the Repugs' trump card in their effort to win in November. With 82% of Americans believing the economy's in recession, this is all the GOP has to run on. And it's a very familiar strategy, right out of the Rovian playbook: fear, fear and more fear.
In response to the overwhelming negative reaction to Bush's comments, the White House has issued a statement saying the president was not speaking about Obama. Yeah, right. Who the hell was he speaking about then? Just when you think Bush cannot possibly insult our intelligence with any more lies and deception, he opens his mouth and out pops another beaut.
Get ready, Democrats. The Repugs' sleaze campaign is solidly underway. You could almost hear and see Karl "The Wizard" Rove's butt peaking out from behind the curtain. And it's only going to get worse. Assuming Obama's the likely nominee, his fully gassed-up Swiftboat has just left shore. Rough, icy waters are ahead.