Bush On Political Attack: Suggests Obama And Democrats Seek “Appeasement” Of Terrorists (UPDATED)

President George Bush has all-but-formally entered campaign 2008 today suggesting — from foreign soil yet — that the Democrats would want “appeasement” of terrorists, in language sharper than usual.

What you read below is one reason why many\independent voters who were once Republicans or voted Republican could well cast a massive protest vote in November. Many independent voters don’t agree with or look favorably upon political discussion that demonizes the other side and tries to push hot buttons. But it is also an indication why George Bush will go down as one of the most polarizing, partisan and divisive Presidents in all of American history:

In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of “appeasement” of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

“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,” said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. “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.”

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish-Americans. Those doubts were already stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the terror group Hamas.

The downside: it is the “vote for us or die” tactic. The upside: it confirms that this theme wasn’t just a product of Vice President Dick Cheney or Karl Rove but came right from the top.

The upside for Republicans: it will give Rush, Sean, et. all a theme they can use throughout the campaign. See our post below on dissatisfied conservatives. This could also whip up conservatives and get them to the polls.

The downside for Republicans and upside for Democrats: This will unite Democrats more than former Senator John Edwards’ endorsement of Obama and will not play well with many independent voters who want to sweep away divisive, polarizing politics.

UPDATE: Obama immeidately responded and the White House then came back and say, why they certainly were not talking about Obama.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accused President Bush on Thursday of launching a “false political attack” with a comment about appeasing dictators.

The Illinois senator interpreted the remark as a slam against him but the White House denied that Bush’s words were in any way directed at Obama, who has said as president he would be willing to personally meet with Iran’s leaders and those of other regimes the United States has deemed rogue.

The problem: this fits a pattern in what has been said before by others in the administration.

Obama responded with a statement, seizing on Bush’s remarks even as it was unclear to whom the president was referring.

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. “George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”

The White House comment also had a tone (read the last part) that is partisan in tone — which will confirm to all except Rush, Sean et. the intent.

“It is not,” press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Israel. “I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case.”

More than anything, this will solidify Obama’s unification of the Democratic party. If Democrats perceive he is being singled out — even if Bush is not using his name — it will accelerate his front-runner status and move the Democratic battle fast track away from primaries to the campaign against John McCain and, quite clearly, the now-in-campaign-mode Bush White House.

UPDATE II: There is no doubt who Mr. Bush was referring to. On Tuesday he said this:

President Bush warned in an interview Tuesday that the Democratic presidential candidates’ plans to withdraw abruptly from Iraq could “eventually lead to another attack on the United States” and would “embolden” terrorists.

In a White House interview with Politico and Yahoo News - a president’s first for an online audience - Bush said his doomsday scenario for a premature withdrawal “of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.”

“The United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of signals throughout the Middle East,” he said in the Roosevelt Room. “And it would shake everybody’s nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we’re trying to defeat.

George Bush is a serial demonizer.

UPDATE: Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman says Bush got it “exactly right.”