Bush Uses Holy Land Pulpit to Launch Smear Campaign

George W. Bush is unworthy of the presidency. He is a disgrace to himself, our Nation, and the high office he holds.

In a speech to the Israeli Knesset on Thursday, Mr. Bush forfeited the last scraps of his moral authority, dishonoring himself by using one of the world's most important pulpits to launch a false and vicious political attack against Barack Obama.

I am such a strong supporter of Israel that when I worked in the White House some of my friends called me a "Likkud Democrat." It is especially appalling to supporters of Israel that Mr. Bush would stand on a hilltop in Jerusalem to invoke the Holocaust in order to make a cheap and deeply dishonest political point.

I am a person of faith, so it is especially galling that a man who calls himself a brother in faith would stand in the Holy Land and violate one of the Commandments God gave to Moses: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

This is what Mr. Bush said, according to the text released by the White House:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

His attack was disgraceful, demeaning and dishonest. Bush's own government has repeatedly conducted negotiations with terrorists and radicals, including:

• Iran. Bush sent Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, then posted to Baghdad, to negotiate with Iran over security issues affecting Iraq. Bush's current Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, told ABC News, "We are willing to sit down with Iran face to face for talks on Iraqi security at the invitation of the Iraqi government. We've had three rounds of those talks and we've told them we are ready to again."
• Libya. Although Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was behind the December, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans, the Bush Administration conducted months of negotiations with the terrorists, culminating in a 2003 agreement to dismantle Libyan long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction;
• North Korea. The Bush Administration, led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has held numerous direct negotiations with the North Korean regime, a charter member of Mr. Bush's "axis of evil."

It should be noted that in each instance, the negotiations actually advanced America's security position. So even the Bush administration, by its actions, attests to the efficacy of negotiating with evildoers.

All this is to say George W. Bush is a hypocrite. So deep is his cynicism that he would go on foreign soil to invoke history's greatest crime to condemn conduct he himself has engaged in.

As an American I am ashamed that such a man represents me.

I say this as someone who has not supported Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries; someone who has reservations about Sen. Obama's plan to engage Iran in talks without any preconditions. But there comes a time when intra-party rivalries must yield, and all of us must stand together against the degradation of the Office of the Presidency.

Comments

[EFC]

It’s interesting that Bush chose the word “delusion” since he has to be one of the most self-deluded people on the Planet-slightly less so than his speech writer, however.

[littlepuffycloud]

Paul is just now feeling shame that Bush represents him?!?!?! What took you so damn long? Bush and Cheney have been handing the evidence of lying, cheating, and conspiring for over 7 years and it just now dawned on you what a horrible disgusting person he is? Where has the press been all this time? Does Bush inc have compromising photos of every so-called journalist in the country? Why else have you all been sitting on your hands doing nothing while over 4000 American service personnel have been killed because of George W. Bush?
Paul, your outrage is too little too late.

[rjlwis]

It has been a disgrace since the Supreme Court handed him the job!

[GLOBALISATIONisBARBARISM]

Amen ... to all you say and infer!

It's a disgrace. HE is a disgrace. And all his enablers for good measure.

But, alas, there is nothing new about that.

My recommendations: Read F. William Engdahl's works if you seek some grasp of how it all started which implies that America was overtaken by hypocrites and thugs. Read Richard C. Cook ("Has the Battle for America Begun? - http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8977 ) for some current "bulletin" of how far it's grown and what chances there remain for humanity to escape irrevocable descent into tyranny and barbarism.

[FollowTheLeader]

Revisonist History on Diplomacy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHliQNZcmi8

[BethStuart]

I apologize if this question has already been answered but does anyone know who this anonymous Senator quoted by Bush was? Or is the person like WMD's in Iraq existing only in the minds of Bush's neo-con speech writers?

[freshnotbitter]

Like Adolph Hitler who denounced the German people as unworthy of a great leader like himself, George Bush was denouncing, on foreign soil, all America for not agreeing with his policies as evidenced by the gigantic disapproval rating of him - now 69%.

That is why it did not matter who the individual Senator was. Bush was denouncing the person as standing for an opinion and Bush was projecting that opinion on all Americans.

The Republicans in Congress should caucus and denounce Bush's unprecedented invective directed from across the seas at the American public.

[skibum49]

The quote was from William Edgar Borah Republican Senator from Idaho from 1912 to 1940.

[HawkOnTheLeft]

Paul - you are far too much on your back heel on this - defending Barack by saying "we are no more appeasers than you." Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Barack is better served by turning the tables, but not by talking about 'failed policies" (too weak a phrase to even raise a yawn) or "policies that do not make us safer" (barely raises a yawn). Say it aggressively:

George Bush, your actions have made our enemies stronger. You have no business telling anyone how to make America safer.

Worried about what Iran will do next in Iraq? Well, Iran wasn't in Iraq until you invaded. You have made our enemy Iran stronger. Concerned about a resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq? There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before you invaded. You have made our enemy al Qaeda stronger.

Iraq was a secular state before we invaded. Now 40% of Iraqis live under Sharia law. Our enemies are stronger because you invaded. The Taliban are strengthened by drug money. Our enemies are stronger because you were distracted by Iraq. Or jump to North Korea, where the madman who had 1 to 2 nuclear weapons now has 8 to 11. The madman is stronger because of your cowboy diplomacy.

George Bush (and John McSame), you have made our enemies stronger. No thinking national security hawk could possibly support you. You have no business telling anyone how to make America safer.

[Kaos911]

I love Peggy Noonan's description of you Paul: In the famous Brazile-Begala smackdown, Paul Begala wore the smile of the 1990s, the one in which there is no connection between the shape of the mouth and what the mouth says. All is mask.

[tylerm]

thank you so muc for posting this,but i do think you should have took a more non bias approach since people would take it more seriously,but i've ben saying this on political forums ee since bush appeasment statement.

he says we shouldn't appease dictators and terrorist all the while his administration talks to north korea who's dictator throws his own people into death camps if they oppose him and he's cutting his own country off from the world which is starving his own country,so he can look good, but bush admin talks to this guy because back in 05 north korea succesfully detonated a nuclear device,but since we've been having diplomatic talks with them they have dismantled their nuclear pogram,so why shouldn't we have diplomacy with iran to get them to try and disarm their nuclear program?

[appleknocker]

You shouldn't be ashamed unless you voted for him. Embarrassed, yes.

[JoeBlough]

I heard that Jenna asked her Mother to give her away. She was so embarrassed by Daddy. Didn't want to stand too close.

[comebackid]

Still, he is not concerned with the polls though!

[Donnat]

I think Jenna is an Obama supporter based on what she said during that ridiculous 'book tour' she and her mother were on.

She should have had Obama give her away, it would have rasied W's stature a good 50 pts.

[jcmccr]

Thanks, Paul, I'm sure you reflected long and hard and as objectively as you could before leaping to your biased and idiotic conclusions. Heavens! Invoking the Holocaust to make a political point! We all know about back channel diplomacy, so of course we talk to Iranians, Syrians, even Democrats. Duh. But I'm sure you won't let you objectivity about President Bush color any future views you might express. Who said Bush represents you? Did you vote for him? I think he would be surprised to find out you think he represents you. Or is it a question of l'etat c'est Begala? I doubt Bush possesses the reflective capacity you credit him with in saying his cynicism is so deep. Instead, he knows his audience, the same people who have the fortitude to bomb a Syrian reactor out of existence without a lot of gnashing and whining from the demos.

[Artisbey]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will), but doesn't the elected President represent us all, whether we like it or not?

By the way, how long have you been waiting to use that French expression?

What's next, giving up deodorant along with common sense?

At this point, anybody who still supports Bush is in dire need of some serious therapy.

[JoeBlough]

JCM,

Bush is supose to represent all of America. Not just the Republican War Profiteers.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

that's right, I almost forgot - didn't Bush say that he only represents those who voted for him? Redefining the Presidency such that you are only the President of those who vote for you.

Nomo - writing here with no President currently for the United States of America that I live in.

[Artisbey]

Excellent article!

But, I must confess, at this point, nothing Bush says or does surprises me.

Dubya is the Wrong-Way Corrigan of politics and he's still flying the plane without a flight plan.

The Lord only knows where we'll land. Hopefully, it will be a controlled crash.

[returnofthejedi]

I would like to know if this traitorous act has ever been performed publicly for Americans to see.
Has any other President ever publicly shown this type of disdain to the democratic process and principles, and at the same time calling those that don't support his miserable policies "un-american?" Can anyone here shed light?

[YvonneH]

This crap from Bush is nothing new - he's the biggest tyrant on earth. What else could one expect except more politics of fear, lies and smears......

[mystic]

Remember the backrub on Merkel? The dancing on the graves of over 4000 dead Americans?
Remember when Bush couldn't find WMD under the table? The smirk, the nasal flaring?
And now taunting the victims of the Holocaust?