Troubling, tired tactic

Bush engages in fear-mongering in his address to the Knesset in Israel

May 16, 2008

There they go again. Republicans peddling fear. The most recent offender was President George W. Bush. Addressing Israel's Knesset yesterday, he took a moment to play down-and-dirty domestic politics, linking anyone who would talk with the nation's enemies to those who succumbed to "the false comfort of appeasement" in 1939 "as Nazi tanks crossed into Poland."

That's a mother lode of incendiary buzz words. It's also a tiresome tactic that elevates partisan politics above the national interest - especially inappropriate for a sitting president. Voters should reject such transparent attempts to exploit their fears for political advantage. Politicians will stop doing it when it no longer works.

The White House insists that Bush didn't have Obama in mind when he said, "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. We have heard this foolish delusion before. We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement."

When Obama fired back, calling Bush's comment "a false political attack," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accused him of another delusion. "I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you," she said. "It is not true in this case."

That would be easier to accept if Bush's comments didn't mimic Republican fear-mongering in previous campaigns. Or if Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, hadn't tried, in a recent fund-raising solicitation, to link Obama to the terrorist group Hamas.

Enough already.

The nation is at war on two foreign fronts and neither is going particularly well. A serious discussion of foreign policy options is urgently needed. Bush has steadfastly refused to talk to officials of any nation he considers an enemy, an approach McCain supports. Obama has said that a president shouldn't be afraid to talk to enemies in an effort to clarify differences and resolve impasses. Those opposing views should be vigorously debated. But simply vilifying those who favor a different approach with foreign foes is no way to advance the nation's interest.