|
|
|
 Americas & Beyond | May 2008 
Obama Hits Back at McCain and Bush
 Associated Press
go to original
| | US President George W. Bush (L) sits beside Israeli parliament speaker Dalia Yitzik in Jerusalem on May 15, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama accused Bush and Republican White House pick John McCain of hypocrisy and fear-mongering Friday, stoking an intense campaign row over national security. (AFP/Mandel Ngan) | | |
Watertown, South Dakota - Senator Barack Obama on Friday criticized Senator John McCain, his potential rival for the presidency, and President George W. Bush for what he called "dishonest and divisive" attacks in hinting that he would appease terrorists.
Obama responded strongly Friday to the comments Bush made in Israel on Thursday and to McCain's subsequent words. At a town hall meeting here, Obama said: "That's the kind of hypocrisy that we've been seeing in our foreign policy, the kind of fear-peddling, fear-mongering that has prevented us from actually making us safer."
Obama said McCain had a "naïve and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."
Other Democrats also accused McCain of hypocrisy, saying the presumptive Republican nominee had previously been willing to negotiate with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
In an op-ed published Friday in The Washington Post, James Rubin, a former State Department official from the Clinton administration, said McCain, responding to a question in a television interview two years ago about whether U.S. diplomats should be working with the Hamas government in Gaza, said:
"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy toward Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice." He added: "But it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
Rubin, who interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News, said McCain was "guilty of hypocrisy" and accused him of "smearing" Obama. On Thursday, McCain suggested that Obama was naïve and inexperienced for expressing a willingness to meet with leaders like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
In Charleston, West Virginia, speaking before Obama's speech, McCain said Friday, "I made it very clear, at that time, before and after, that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations, that Hamas would have to abandon their terrorism, their advocacy to the extermination of the state of Israel, and be willing to negotiate in a way that recognizes the right of the state of Israel and abandons their terrorist position and advocacy."
He then contended that Obama wanted to "sit down and negotiate with a government exporting most lethal devices used against soldiers."
McCain continued: "He wants to sit down face to face with a government that is very clear about developing nuclear weapons. They are sponsors of terrorist organizations. That's a huge difference in my opinion. And I'll let the American people decide whether that's a significant difference or not. I believe it is."
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, said in an interview with CNN on Friday that the Bush administration had negotiated with North Korea and Libya.
"This is pure hypocrisy," Biden said. "But the worst part about it is, think how it falls on the ears in capitals of Europe and the rest of the world and Toyko when the president of the United States says under no condition will we talk to anybody like that, and John McCain, the nominee for the Republican Party, who may very well be president of the United States, is saying the same thing." |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us