Bush Criticizes Obama While on Foreign Soil

Bush, moments before his “Hitler” speech at the Knesset, gives an unusual salute to the welcome party

This morning, Bush took the highly unusual (if not unprecedented) step of taking domestic partisan politics to foreign soil in a speech in Israel. In his speech before the Knesset to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary, he indirectly criticized Democrats and Obama by comparing U.S. diplomatic efforts to engage with foreign leaders as the equivalent of appeasing the Nazis. (His staff confirmed his remarks were referring to the Democrats and Obama).

First, Bush equated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden. Then: “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. 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 is is — the false comfort of appeasement.

Bush’s cheap shot this morning violates two long bipartisan traditions of American foreign policy: (1) keep domestic partisan politics out of foreign affairs and (2) never engage in criticisms of American political leaders or policies while on foreign soil.

CNN says Bush’s attack was coordinated in advance with the McCain campaign. If McCain wants Bush to be his attack dog, McCain is much dumber than I imagined. Now when McCain makes similar attacks of his own, he can be branded as following the same tired politics of Bush. It’s confirmation that McCain is running for Bush’s third term.

The easy Democratic response is to ask McCain to name one major diplomatic accomplishment of the last eight years under Bush. (crickets, crickets). But foreign affairs failures? There are many: (i) the election of Hamas in Gaza in 2006, (ii) North Korea’s possible development of nuclear weapons, (iii) Iran’s growing role and power in the Middle East (including in Iraq), and (iv) key European and other allies publicly breaking from U.S. policy following the debacle in Iraq, to name a few examples.

Bush’s criticism is an overwrought and desperate grasp that conflicts with current reality and history.

As for current reality, Obama never said he would negotiate with terrorists and radicals — this is pure political slander. Bush is equating heads of state with stateless terrorists. What Obama has repeatedly stated is he would be willing to negotiate with countries that are not our allies — an established bipartisan tradition followed by every major modern president before Bush/Cheney (including recent GOP presidents like Nixon and Reagan).

As for history, contrary to the revisionist premise of Bush’s attack, it was the GOP that favored isolationism and Nazi appeasement in the late 1930’s, while FDR and the Democrats favored taking on the Nazi threat directly and militarily. Pat Buchanan is a political heir to this same right wing, isolationist doctrine. Indeed, the senator quoted by Bush in his speech (who Bush was careful to not identify by name or party) was Republican Senator William Borah (R-ID). Among other things, Senator Borah was an isolationist known for his fierce opposition to Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations. At the time of his quote in 1939, he was at the end of his distinguished Senate career (he died in 1940), and had been increasingly erratic in his criticisms of FDR’s New Deal and entanglements in the growing tensions in Europe. More disturbingly, as one scholar of Borah has written:

“[Senator Borah] derided British visitors who came ‘to spread their propaganda’ and attacked France and England for veiling their national interests in the language of democracy and dictatorship. Worse still, although Borah despised any dictatorial pretensions in Roosevelt, the Idahoan revealed his admiration for Hitler. ‘There are so many great sides to him,’ Borah said of Hitler in 1938. After the Fuehrer had taken the Suedetenland, Borah emoted, ‘Gad, what a chance Hitler has! If he only moderates his religious and racial intolerance, he would take his place beside Charlemagne. He has taken Europe without firing a shot.’ Even after the war had started in 1939, a war Borah had repeatedly stated in public would never happen and that he curiously labeled as ‘phony’ after its inception, the Senator lamented, ‘Lord, if I could only have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’

So let’s be clear: the senator Bush quotes to manufacture a straw man for Obama is hardly some naive, kumbaya-singing, latte-sipping, Prius-driving senator (as Bush’s quote would imply). He was a powerful GOP isolationist sympathizer to Hitler. Borah’s quote apparently reflected his misguided perception that as some kind of fellow traveler with Hitler, he might have persuaded Hitler to stand down (perhaps like Bush’s perceived ability to look into Putin’s soul). Want more evidence of hypocrisy? Bush’s own grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush (R-CT), shared the same isolationist and Nazi-sympathetic views of Senator Borah, who even helped Hitler’s rise to power.

Who knows — if George W. Bush’s war against Saddam was to avenge his father’s failure to take out Saddam during his presidency, perhaps Bush’s neocon interventionism is to avenge his grandfather’s isolationism.

At the end of the day, Bush’s attack is about tossing red meat to the neocon wing of the GOP. A wing that has been discredited by the misguided “preemptive war” in Iraq. How this helps McCain win over independents and moderates in November is beyond me.

It’s evidence that the GOP continues to misread the electoral mood, and is desperately trying to make this a race against the Obama they want instead of the Obama they got.

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UPDATE:  White House now claims its “AppeasementGate” target was Jimmy Carter, not Obama, in Bush’s Knesset remarks.  First, that’s not what CNN and NBC claim they were told by the White House off the record.  Second, is that supposed to make it more forgiveable?  A US President slams a former US President while he is on foreign soil?  Since when was that kosher?  If President Clinton had slammed Reagan in a formal speech before the Knesset (or in any other foreign land), the GOP would have been apoplectic (and with good reason).  Third, even if that is the case, it doesn’t absolve McCain for piling on yesterday and explicitly targeting Obama.  Given how closely the White House and McCain’s campaign coordinate, how is it credible that Bush wasn’t targeting Obama given McCain’s explicit slamming of Obama after Bush’s remarks?