Bush compares those who would talk with Iran to Nazi appeasers: Democrats are not amused (video)

Transcript

VOICE OF CARLO BASILONE: US President George W. Bush launched what many say was a political attack against Democratic front-runner Barack Obama on Thursday when he addressed the Israeli Parliament. Though he didn't name names, the statement seemed to be directed at Senator Obama's willingness to meet with leaders of Iran and Syria, among others.

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GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT: Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they had been wrong all along. We've 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.

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White house spokespersons denied that the Knesset remark was aimed in any way at Obama, but leading Democrats were furious and struck back at Bush.

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JOSEPH BIDEN, US SENATOR (D-DE): This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous, outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset, and make this kind of ridiculous statement. He's the guy that's weakened us. He's the guy that's increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States have—his intelligence community has pointed that out, not me. The NIE has pointed that out. And what are you talking about? You know, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You know, we have a protocol, sort of a custom informally around here that we don't criticize the president when he is on foreign soil. One would think that that would apply to the president, that he would not criticize Americans when he is on foreign soil. I think what the president did in that regard is beneath the dignity of the office of president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel.

REPORTER: Mrs. Speaker, you referred to refocusing—.

PELOSI: And I would hope that any serious person would disassociate himself from the president's remarks.

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PEPE ESCOBAR: A sitting US president addresses a parliament in foreign soil and compares a candidate of the opposing party to appeasers of Nazi Germany. What's significant is that this president, referring to Iran, was contradicted by his own secretary of defense. Robert Gates is saying the US should, and I quote, "develop some leverage, and then sit and talk to Iran, and not bomb Iran."

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