Last week, President’ Bush so-called “controversial” statements at an event commemorating Israel’s 60th anniversary sparked a feud between himself, John McCain, and Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama.
Even though President Bush has not engaged in personal political attacks, Barack Obama, who is running against the notion of the politics of personal destrcution, made an attack on Bush. Obama accused President Bush of “a false political attack” Thursday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists. It is interesting that Obama would feel this is a personal attack on him, when Bush didn’t name or refer to him or anyone specifically. I guess we see where his weakness is – and where he knows it is.
Bush’s statement was simply this: “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.” Bush continued, “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.”
I think what Bush did was signal the alarm. He sees the writing on the wall: As his own term as President is coming to an end, a Presidency in which he led a vigorous assault on radical Islamic terrorists, he realizes a new Commander-in-Chief must take over this responsibility. He realizes it is more likely that Democrat President (say, Obama?) will take over the controls and have with them a Democrat-led Congress. Given the Left’s weakness on fighting America’s enemies, Bush may have just spoken words that historians will uncover later… after the bloodshed that ensues when appeasement is given the green light.
President Bush may not be a perfect President, but one can’t argue with his record against terrorism. He experienced 9/11 like the rest of us, and he went on the attack, protecting our nation from it’s hostile enemies, and never relenting. Victory is the only option.