Posted on 05/17/2008 11:06:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The problem Barack Obama is stuck with - whether he likes it or not, and he doesn't - is that during this campaign he did in fact say, and moreover did in fact say several times, that as President he would be entirely willing to sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other rogues with no preconditions whatsoever.
That is why, for a second day Friday, the customarily unflappable Obama rather flappably chose to go on a tear over President Bush's remarks to the Israeli Knesset. He called those remarks "appalling" and "divisive" and much else, presenting himself as the victim of an untoward attack.
He is no such thing.
Here is what Bush said, before the Knesset on a visit celebrating Israel's 60th birthday: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them that 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."
Nothing that has not been said many times, by Bush and by others.
Nothing that was inappropriate when speaking to the elected officials of a country that is surrounded by genocidal anti-Semites who have vowed its destruction - among them Ahmadinejad, who intends to attain nuclear weapons to get the job done.
And nothing, let it be noted, that specifically cited Obama, or anyone else, by name. Bush might easily have been talking about warm and fuzzy Jimmy Carter, who lately did such a swell job of winning over the hearts and minds of Hamas.
Ah, but Obama has said he would treat unconditionally with Ahmadinejad. While far short of appeasement, that's a problem.
And so he emphatically replies that certainly he'll be tough on those Holocaust-denying, death-to-Israel-hoping, nuke-seeking Iranians, isolating them until they give up their doomsday desires. Isolation in this case, though, wouldn't count a meeting with President Obama. Which is not really very severe isolation at all. What is the man talking about?
Until the Iranians relent on their crazed aspirations, Tehran poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. Obama pledges he'll always be with Israel. But it's not Israel that's causing him so much trouble. It's his own insufficiently formulated thinking.
I LISTENED TO HIM SAY THIS SEVERAL TIMES!!!!!
If he denies it now he is a bold faced liar!!!!!
Nothing new there I guess.....
Obama is coming out hard and strong against this, because he does not want others to define him as an appeaser. Of course he has already defined himself as such, but that is besides the point.
hmmmm...
We can’t talk about his middle name, his racist wife or nutball pastor, his associations with terrorists and mobsters, his voting record- state OR federal, his Mama and NOW we can’t talk about anything he has said- ON THE RECORD.
Are these people for real?
Obama to Ahmadinejad: My friends in America care about the environment. We dont burn our flags, we only stomp on them.
A guilty conscience needs no accusing.
Liberals don’t care about truth or integrity of
their own. This won’t have an effect on his base.
Boy the moonbats are in a tizzy about this and all we have to do is show them tapes of the debates where their messiah said he would waltz over to the ME and sit right down with the muzzies.
I tell ya, that boy aint nohow got the smarts to be prezahdant
Honest Achmed? Er... I meant Abe.
No matter where they end up. . .
Does Obama like to swim?
When my oldest son was three he was in a private pre-school where the teachers “punished” kids who were “bad” by making them sit in the kitchen for 15 - 20 minutes, until they calmed down. One day I picked up my son and on the drive home I asked him, “So, did you have to sit in the kitchen today?” He looked at me wide-eyed and replied, “No! I didn’t stick my tongue out at Joey!”
Today’s Democrat tantrums brought back that old memory. Bush simply stated long-held American policy and never even mentioned the Democrats or any individual Democrat by name, yet the Democrats “responded” en masse like three-year-olds, exclaiming, “I didn’t stick my tongue out at Joey!”
Obama and the rest of those morons are pathetic.
Due to an irrational fear of what the rats call "Swift Boating", Obama has assembled a "rapid response team" that reacts immediately to everything that may possibly be directed at B. Hussein. The kind of overzealous "thou doth protest TOO much" reaction they have demonstrated the past two days makes Obama look like the fool he is.
You said, “Check out the comments”, so I went to the article and read the comments from the readers. I was appalled. It is frightening to see how ignorant some people are.
b. HUSSEIN....the lib/dem choice.....most like biden & piglosi are screaming now about Bush’s comments...sounds like buyers remorse....
moreover.....didn’t someone once state something about the chickens coming home to roost....
oh wait....americans are not allowed to speak aobut b. HUSSEIN’S religious mentor!!!!
One of Obama's greatest strengths is talent for turning his glaring weaknesses into his opponents' problems. He has been quite effective in being able to take a number issues, including those you list and more, and removing them from the list of allowed criticisms.
This business about appearing to overreact to Bush's mild comments is not so much about being overly paranoid or sensitive. Instead it is a three part strategy:
1) Show that he tough enough to fight back anything the Republicans throw his way. Obama supporters have worried that he does not have a killer instinct. After all, he has not been able to fight dirty with Hillary for fear of alienating her voters. Now he is trying to show he can be even tougher than McCain. He is aided by McCain's strategy of kid gloving his criticisms of Obama out of fear of being thought a racist;
2) He is maneuvering to take this issue and his general foreign policy weakness off the table of allowed criticisms. He has a good deal of help from the press in this effort;
3) Most importantly, Obama is trying to turn his core weakness of being seen as an appeaser into Bush's, and most of all McCain's, problem. The country is broadly tired of the war and generally blames Bush for it. Obama is trying to generalize the dislike for Bush redirecting this anger against all conservative approaches to problems both foreign and domestic. In a classic Obama Jujitsu maneuver, he is seeking to turn his opponent's greatest strengths (foreign policy expertise, war experience, and manly approach to defending America), into McCain's core weaknesses. If McCain pulls a Bush and refuses to attack this stratagem head on, then he will likely be toast.
On the other hand, the Repubs are certainly going to make another anti-Obama ad out of this, similar to the one using MsHell’s “only time proud” commercial.
Just interplay his previous comments with this current appeasment statment, and he’ll be clearly shown as a liar and a hypocrite.
That won’t help his plan much.
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