the president calls Baroque Obama out on negotiating with terrorists, which is exactly what his stated
policy of unconditional meetings with ahmadinejad is in reality, and Obama's response is to pretty much
change the subject, and then to toss a flat lie in there at the end.
oh, well, at least the Big Emptiness that is barack obama didn't call it an example of "the old way of doing
things that I am here to change".
there are some pretty good shots at obama's incredible sense of self importance in the white house
response. the white house definitely got the better of obama in this exchange.
Obama Takes Issue With Bush Foreign Policy Speech
ABC News' Ed O'Keefe Reports: The Obama campaign is taking issue with a comment President Bush made while speaking to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's statehood.
"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," the President said to the country's legislative body, "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."
In a statement, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shot across the bow: "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. 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."
ABC News' White House troops point out that the President has made similar statements in the past and Bush did not specifically cite Obama by name, though he did reference Sen. William Borah's immortal reaction upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland and begun World War II, something he has not highlighted in the past.
"(The President) has said similar things before," a White House official told ABC News' Martha Raddatz. "But it is in reference to a number of people, think Carter, others who have engaged in this or suggested it."
White House spokesperson Dana Perino was asked if Bush's line was a slam against Obama and she insisted, "It is not."
"I understand that when you are running for office sometimes you think the world revolves around you. (
) That is not always true and it is not true in this case," Perino added, though the White House is keenly aware of how such statements might play during a heated political season and has steadfastly avoided commenting on the 2008 race.
In an ABC News interview with the President in April, Bush told Raddatz, "I've said the president's job is to solve these issues diplomatically first and foremost. But, of course options need to stay on the table."
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