Obama blasts Bush for 'false political attack'

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 16, 2008

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama accused President George W. Bush of "a false political attack" yesterday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists - early salvos in a general election campaign that's already blazing.

The White House denied that Bush's remark was aimed at Obama. But in short order, the controversy spilled across the presidential campaign.

John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said Obama was showing "naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment" in his willingness to meet with U.S. foes, including Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, then called Bush's comments "offensive and outrageous, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy."

As the workday began in the United States, Bush gave a speech to Israel's Knesset in which he spoke of the president of Iran, who has called for the destruction of the U.S. ally. Then, Bush 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," Bush said. "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."

But in a statement, Obama said: "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

The transcontinental tiff signaled the early direction of the general election. Bush seemed to assume the traditional lame-duck presidential role in trying to help McCain, while Obama tried to show strength as he continued to try to nail down the Democratic nomination. Yesterday, Obama picked up the support of four more Democratic superdelegates along with the endorsement of the United Steelworkers Union, which has 600,000 active members.

In Columbus, Ohio, yesterday, McCain said that while he took the White House at its word that Bush was not aiming at Obama, "This does bring up an issue that we will be discussing with the American people, and that is, why does Barack Obama, Senator Obama, want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism?"

But Clinton, campaigning in South Dakota in advance of a June 3 Democratic primary, said Bush's statement had "no place in any presidential address."

"I have differences with Senator Obama on certain foreign policy matters, but I think we are united in our opposition to the Bush policies and to the continuation of those policies by Senator McCain," she said. Obama has said he would be willing to meet with heads of state in places like Iran, Cuba and North Korea.