Thursday, May 15, 2008

Bush sees calls for Iran talks as "appeasement"

Not to be outdone, the president comes through with his views.Expect nuggets, or turds.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday decried his critics' calls for negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as comparable to the "appeasement" of Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Right. Invoke words that go to the emotional level: Hitler, appeasement. Poor Neville Chamberlain: even W. Bush thinks he's an asshole. That's low.

Bush used his speech to the Israeli Knesset to ratchet up his rhetoric against Iran, saying Washington stood by the Jewish state in opposing Tehran's "nuclear weapons ambitions".

Nice enough. Simple, misleading. Should appeal to a lot of bitter people.

But his words also resonated in the presidential campaign, which has increasingly overshadowed him in his final year in office as the Democratic candidates have sharpened criticism of his foreign policy, including the unpopular war in Iraq.

It's not easy being green -- or stupid.

Bush, who has refused any contact with Ahmadinejad, said the Iranian president "dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map," and lumped him together in an anti-Israel camp with Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden.

Middle Ages; that's nice: of course the Moors had already been out of Europe for 500 years. And I wonder about the Shia-Sunni split; does that enter into the President's thinking? Does he think?

"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," he added.

A Republican, perhaps?

[Obama] said in response to Bush: "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."

"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," he added.

A good spin. Not to be forgotten, there's Bush-light: Arizona's McCain.

Obama, vying with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has had trouble connecting with Jewish voters, and has struggled to counter doubts raised by critics about his commitment to Israel. McCain has said Hamas favors Obama, who would be America's first black president.

Hamas favours him? Who cares what Hamas thinks? Still, Hama, Obama, Barack, Hamas, Hussein, Hamas -- get it?

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