Dan

Calabrese

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May 19, 2008

At the Knesset: Bush’s Fine Speech, and Obama’s Fine Whine

Democrats haven’t done too well trying to win the White House by whining about Republican “attacks.” But now they’re fixing that. If whining doesn’t work, whine faster, louder and more often.

Democratic train wrecks Michael Dukakis and John Kerry insist to this day that if only they had “responded to the attacks” fast enough, they would have won. Like his vanquished predecessors, Barack Obama remembers every part of the evil-Republicans-attacked-and-we-didn’t-respond narrative incorrectly.

Both Dukakis and Kerry complained that their patriotism was under attack by Republicans, even though no one can find a single example of a Republican attacking the patriotism of either. Both responded to the imaginary attacks. Dukakis did so in a presidential debate, insisting that George H.W. Bush was calling him unpatriotic even though Bush had just told him he didn’t think that. As for Kerry, who can forget his decision to send former Sen. Max Cleland – a triple amputee with stumps showing in all their glory – wheeling up to George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, carrying a letter demanding that Bush stop the “attacks”?

Now Obama has decided on a hysterical strategy of hyper-responding to anything that could even remotely be interpreted as an attack on him – even “attacks” that make no mention of him, and according to him, don’t make reference to anything he believes.

President Bush’s speech last week to the Israeli Knesset, in celebration of Israel’s 60^th anniversary as a nation, made no mention of Obama or any other Democrat. But it’s all about Obama, at least to Obama, so he is outraged that Bush said this:

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st Century.

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.

The U.S. senator Bush referenced was William Borah of Idaho, a Republican who died in 1940.

Israel is a nation whose existence has been under literal attack since the literal day of its birth. Attempts by outside parties to broker “peace agreements” with Israel’s antagonists have been fruitless. So it’s no surprise that Bush received thunderous applause when he stated these rather obvious lessons of history.

But when Obama heard Bush talk about these “good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness . . .” he recognized himself. Well. Why would this be? He knows himself well, one presumes, so he immediately began to protest too much:

“He accused me and other Democrats of wanting to negotiate with terrorists, and said we were appeasers no different from people who wanted to appease Adolf Hitler,” Obama whined. “That’s what George Bush said in front of the Israeli Parliament. That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world.”

Democratic presidential candidates are typically thin-skinned, and clumsily so, but Obama may take this trait to a new level. He and they are defensive about issues like patriotism and national security weakness because they know they have problems with these issues.

Bush said some people want to appease terrorists in the manner of Nazi appeasers. He didn’t fill in the blank and tell us who. He left that to Obama, who jumped right in and did so. Obama. Democrats. Appeasers. Discredited by history. Just in case you didn’t know who these fools are, Obama made it crystal clear.

Democrats don’t lose because they fail to respond. They lose because they’re highly sensitive about the issues on which everyone knows they are wrong. Obama says he will meet with the presidents of Iran and Syria – with no preconditions – but insists he will not negotiate with terrorists. Apparently Obama doesn’t know that these men actively support Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Meeting with them is negotiating with terrorists.

Obama has reason to be defensive, which is why he is trying the Dukakis/Kerry strategy on steroids. Imagine attacks. Respond with indignation. And in the process, remind everyone of the very weaknesses you want them to forget.

If God is smiling on America, this will work about as well as it usually does.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

This is Column # DC174.  Request permission to publish here.