Bush vs. Obama
Posted: Friday, May 16, 2008 9:14 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
White House, 2008, Security, Obama
The headline from the Los Angeles Times: "In Israel, President Bush derides terrorism 'appeasement'; Barack Obama bristles."
Per the Boston Globe, “The intercontinental exchange between a junior Illinois senator and the sitting president confirmed Obama's new status as his party's standard-bearer - and Bush's willingness to defend his foreign policy in the midst of the campaign to replace him. ‘I can't imagine there's a precedent for a sitting president to go before the legislative body of a foreign government and launch a political attack on a major-party nominee running to succeed him,’ said Brian P. Murphy, a fellow in American history at the University of Pennsylvania.”
The New York Times writes, “The episode placed Mr. Bush squarely in one of the most divisive debates of the campaign to succeed him, as Republicans try to portray Mr. Obama as weak in the fight against terrorism. It also underscored what the White House has said will be an aggressive effort by Mr. Bush to use his presidential platform to influence the presidential election.”
More: “For Mr. Obama, the stakes are high. Many American Jews and Israelis view him with some suspicion, for several reasons. First, he has said he would be willing to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the leader of Iran, who has called Israel ‘a stinking corpse’ and denies its right to exist.”
Indeed, McClatchy says that Bush “seemed to be trying at least in part to woo Jewish voters who've signaled concerns about Barack Obama… Analysts took note of Obama's swift response, calling it another signal that he knows he has doubters in the Jewish community. ‘No doubt about it,’ said Kevin Wagner, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University in Southeast Florida, home to many Jewish retirees. More conservative, older Jewish voters tend to be suspicious of where Obama stands on Israel, he said.”
“The stinging remarks roiled the race for the White House and marked a sharp turn for the president, who has largely stayed well clear of involving himself in the contest to succeed him,” the New York Post writes, adding, “Republican John McCain said he agreed with Bush's statements, and used the opportunity to argue that Obama was showing ‘naivete and inexperience and lack of judgment’ in his willingness to meet with America's foes.”
Although Obama himself didn’t comment on Bush’s and McCain’s remarks yesterday, he did say this to the New York Times’ David Brooks: “The debate we’re going to be having with John McCain is how do we understand the blend of military action to diplomatic action that we are going to undertake,” he said. “I constantly reject this notion that any hint of strategies involving diplomacy are somehow soft or indicate surrender or means that you are not going to crack down on terrorism. Those are the terms of debate that have led to blunder after blunder.”
GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel, whom some see as a possible Obama running mate, jumped into the fray. “The president probably would have been better off staying on the high ground and not interject himself in politics… I think he diminishes the office when he allows himself to sink down into the underbrush of petty politics,” Hagel told MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry. “I’m not sure who he was talking about or what he meant,” he said. “I’m not aware of any officials who have ever talked about a policy of dealing with terrorists.”
He added, “I agree with Sen. Obama and many of us who have talked about engaging Iran. Iran is a legitimate government… a sovereign nation.”
