Bush, Obama and Hitler

Once upon a time, presidents left domestic politics "at the water's edge" when going overseas on official travel. As he has done so many times, President Bush took that fairly common-sense approach and tossed it out the window.

The Decider is currently in the Middle East to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Israel's independence. Speaking at the Knesset in Jerusalem today, Bush had this to say:

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. 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.

This was, quite simply, a swipe at Barack Obama, who has repeatedly said that diplomacy is always preferable to knee-jerk military action and that war should be a last resort only. The Commander Guy obviously thinks that makes Obama some sort of yellow-bellied Nazi appeaser, and said so publicly. White House press secretary Dana Perino said he was not referring to Obama, but rather to anyone who is so obviously naive as to want talks with Iran and others on Bush's enemies list.

Yeah, right.

CNN almost immediately contradicted her, citing "White House aides" who admitted it was indeed an attack on Obama.

For a president who has said more than once that he wouldn't get involved in this year's campaign, it was a low blow. And he did it overseas on a supposedly nonpartisan trip. And he did it in Israel, the nation created after the Nazis wiped out millions of Jews while the world twiddled its thumbs.

Obama struck back quickly, releasing this statement:

It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally, Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all the elements of American power, including tough, principled and direct diplomacy to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.

This will, of course, make no impact on Bush. Convinced that he is right and that everyone else is wrong, he simply has no clue that his diplomacy-is-for-wimps approach is not only wrong, but disastrously so. His loathing of anything short of going in with guns blazing got us stuck with a quagmire in Iraq, a nuclear-armed North Korea and a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

And, as Senator Joe Biden quickly pointed out, Bush's hatred of talking rather than shooting requires that he fire both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, both of whom openly support diplomacy with Iran.

Somehow, I don't see that happening. It's fine when Republicans do it, you see.