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Obama Responds To Bush’s “Appalling” Charge Of Him Wanting Terrorists “Appeasement” (UPDATED)

May 16th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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Democratic Senator Barack Obama has responded to President George Bush and presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain — calling Bush’s suggestion that he favored “appeasement” of terrorists “appalling” and blasting McCain’s agreement with Bush on the issue.

He called the attacks “dishonest and divisive” and accused McCain of “hypocrisy” for going after him despite having advocated talking to foes himself. He also cited various Republicans bigwigs and policymakers who also advocate dialogue. Here is his speech, via TPM:

CNN reports:

Barack Obama struck back hard at President Bush and John McCain Friday, accusing them of hypocrisy and of distorting his position on dialogue with nations hostile to the United States, telling a South Dakota crowd that “I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course.”

“I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain, and with the people of South Dakota,” he said at a Watertown campaign stop. “If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I’m happy to have any time, any place and that is debate I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.”

In his comments before the Israeli Knesset Thursday, Bush seemed to equate the Illinois senator’s foreign policy views with those of Nazi appeasers in the years before World War II, though he did not mention any names. Obama strongly criticized the president for the remarks Friday, calling them “the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world.”


Read it all.

Democrats should be heartened by Obama’s response. He shows here that he can not only respond quickly, but eloquently and with some humor as well. He used Bush’s comments to further tether McCain to Bush and use it as an argument for a change not only in policies but in the tone and seriousness of discussion of issues.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles’ Times Top of the Ticket blog has an interesting take on it — and “update” comments from McCain indicating that the presumptive GOP nominee is indeed saying “me, too” to Bush’s comments.

Signaling he’s not about to let the “appeasement” issue die, Barack Obama moments ago scored President Bush and John McCain on foreign policy. Speaking at a forum on agricultural issues in Watertown, S.D., Obama slammed the Republicans for contending that he was willing to negotiate with terrorists.

McCain is once again squarely aligning himself with Bush:

McCain’s spokesman, responds. “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Sen. Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Sen. Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Sen. Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.”



This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Terrorism, Elections, John McCain, Hamas, Foreign Policy, Demonization, Negative Campaigning, Newsweek Blogitics, Barack Obama, Israel, Iran, Middle East, 2008 Elections, War On Terror, Democrats, Republicans, George W. Bush, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 16 Comments

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    Obama is going to clean McCain's clock in November. Everytime I hear them talk I only become more convinced.
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    Well, at least he preaches well to the choir.

    It would probably help people figure out if Bush was referring to him in his criticism if we actually knew what Obama's position on negotiations really is. Since I've asked about seven different times and haven't gotten a response, I still don't know what his position is or what his supporters think his position is.

    He called the attacks “dishonest and divisive” and accused McCain of “hypocrisy” for going after him despite having advocated talking to foes himself.

    This part is actually breathtakingly ballsy- as the accusation aimed at McCain is based on a misrepresentation of what McCain said, and in the same sentence that Obama repeats that disingenuous attack on McCain he's using the same to say that McCain is hypocritical about claiming to run a clean campaign. Incredible, really.
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    The main problem is the conflation of negotiations with appeasement. Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler handed over half of Czechoslovakia to the Nazi's. There's no evidence that talking to Hamas would hand over half of Israel or lead to our defeat by terrorists.

    Bush's rhetoric is the same old scare tactics that the GOP has used for the last 8 years. It is becoming less and less effective on the voting public. The more McCain chooses to agree with Bush, the easier it will be for the Democrats to tie them together in the fall.
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    CStanley,

    Have you even followed what McCain has been saying?

    Long before Bush went to Israel, McCain has been shopping around the Hamas=Obama line.

    Twisting, spinning and misrerepresentation was the core of McCain's campaign against Romney. It's what he has done and what he is doing, all the while claiming he is the straight shooter.

    While he is not alone in playing smear politics, neither does he deserve special dispensation, or consideration..
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    These conflicts in interpretation don't pop up out of the blue.
    Context, context, context.

    Bush has a long history of characterizing Dems as the appeasers, the traitors, the friends of terrorism, especially during election times.
    He makes a speech now without naming Obama, although several staffers are reported (on both CNN and MNBC) to have said this was thw unspolen intent.

    Although Bush doesn't speak the name Obama, McCain immediately picks up the ball and does so loud and clear. It was, and continues to be be,a lovely double play, but the ball is clearly visible as it flies back and forth between Bush and the not-Bush candidate.

    Hitler has already been injected in the rhetoric, so we have 9/11 to look forward to.in the near future.

    The experience of Bush's presidency, with his political maneuvers is as much a part of this indiviual event as anything currently said or not said.
    Context, you know.
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    Long before Bush went to Israel, McCain has been shopping around the Hamas=Obama line.
    As far as I know, the first time he brought it up is when a Hamas leader endorsed Obama. I suspect if someone questionable endorsed McCain, then Obama's camp would have responded similarly.

    I don't see how that context, whatever your feelings on it, affect whether or not McCain's actual words about Hamas should be distorted. For all the context you see about how the GOP plays the game, I see the same from the opposite side- that a liberal columnist twists McCain's words and then Obama picks up the ball and runs with it. What I find particularly bold is to do so at the same time while he's criticizing McCain for hypocrisy about honest campaign tactics.
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    CStanley,

    We differ(as has been true across many topics) , on basic philosophical grounds..

    You want to take a snippet in time, a few phrases, to either condemn a person (Wright) or to exhonorate a person (MCain).

    I think that ithis approach distorts reality, in the same way that looking at only the nose distorts understanding of the face.
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    runasim, you're problem appears to be that you are that one person that P T Barnum said was born every minute.
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    An observation:

    Personal insluts are the alat resort when logical reasoning fails.
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