Pelosi On Bush’s Disgusting Remarks and McCain’s Take

Matthew Hay Brown gives me yet another reason to praise the Speaker of the House:

The oblique references continue. Some believe President Bush was alluding to Barack Obama this morning when he criticized “some people” who “seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals.” Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to be calling on John McCain to distance himself from the remarks Bush made before the Israeli Knesset. “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,” Pelosi told reporters this morning. “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, and I would hope that any serious person would disassociate himself from the president’s remarks, who aspires to leaderhip in our country.” Asked if she was referring to McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, the California Democrat repeated: “Any serious person. Any serious person.”

But I guess McCain isn’t listening:

Saying he takes Bush at his word that he wasn’t speaking directly of Obama, McCain said, “It does bring up an issue I 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?” McCain said in the back of his campaign bus. “What does he want to talk about with, with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad who said that Israel’s a stinking corpse, who said that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, who’s sending the most explosive devices into Iraq, killing Americans?” he said. “The point is that peace through strength is the way we achieve peace in the world. That’s the point. I will debate this issue with Senator Obama throughout this campaign.” Going farther, McCain continued to connect Obama with Ahmadinejad and highlight the Iranian leader’s incendiary comments about Israel. “I think Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terror that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans and wants to wipe Israel off the map and denies the Holocaust,” McCain said. “It is a serious error on the part of Senator Obama that shows naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment to say that he wants to sit down across the table from an individual who leads a country that says and says that Israel is a stinking corpse, that is dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel.”

Peace through strength? This is the slogan of the Likud Party and their policies have turned a bad situation for Israel into a worse one. If McCain thinks we have peace between Israel and Palestine, he’s an idiot. Of course, anyone who thinks our version of this – invading Iraq on March 19, 2003 – has worked well is also an idiot. The Speaker may have given great advice but the person that it was apparently directed at appears to be as pathetic and clueless as President Bush.