President George W. Bush has already earned the dubious distinction of having the lowest approval rating of any president in U.S. history, including Richard Nixon. Therefore, you’d think he would be mindful of risking what little remains of his presidential gravitas.
Yet that is precisely what he did this week by violating the cardinal rule of American politics, which holds that partisanship (especially in foreign policy) ends at the water’s edge.
Bush is currently on a state visit to Israel to celebrate its 60th anniversary of independence. And, during a speech in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), here’s how he defiled the occasion by wallowing in the gutter of Republican Party politics:
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.
Of course, Bush was too caught up in his own bombast to notice that many members of the Knesset were thoroughly turned off by his simple-minded, scaremongering analogies to Nazi Germany.
But I was so impressed by the inspired and pithy indignation his speech incited amongst (Democratic) members of the U.S. Congress that I shall suffice to share what a few of them said about Bush’s cheap shot at presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama:
President Bush comparing any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is offensive and outrageous, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy. [Hillary Rodham Clinton]
This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset … and make this kind of ridiculous statement. [Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee]
Not surprisingly, the engineer of the worst foreign policy in our nation’s history has fired yet another reckless and reprehensible round. [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid]
I think what the president did in that regard is beneath the dignity of the office of president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel. [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi]
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. 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. [Barack Obama]
Enough said.
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