Democrats Condemn Bush’s ‘Appeaser’ Comment

While addressing the Israeli Knesset, President Bush referred to the willingness of “some” to speak with unsavory leaders such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he went on to compare them to those who sought to appease the Nazis before World War II. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton set aside their differences on diplomacy long enough to take objection to that statement.

Obama, who has favored unconditional talks with Iran, called Bush’s remark “a disgraceful political attack.” Even Sen. Clinton, who has disagreed with Obama on the issue of unconditional talks with adversary nations, said Bush’s comment was “offensive and outrageous, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy.”

AP via Google:

As the workday began stateside, Bush gave a speech to Israel’s Knesset in which he spoke of the president of Iran, who has called for the destruction of the U.S. ally. Then, the president said: “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 heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all 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,” Bush added.

With the president abroad and those seeking to succeed him campaigning at home, the transcontinental tiff signaled the early direction of the general election. Bush seemed to assume the traditional lame-duck presidential role in trying to help the Republican nominee-in-waiting, and Obama tried to maneuver for advantage—and to show strength—while on the cusp of clinching the Democratic nomination.

Read more

commons.wikimedia.org