CHAMBERLAIN AND APPEASEMENT: REPUBLICANS UP RHETORIC

President George Bush broke an unwritten rule of political protocol today in his speech to the Israeli Knesset. The rule is that politicians leave domestic partisan politics at home when abroad and politicians do not attack the President's policies while he is in a foreign country. It seems that convention is now in the past.

He drove home some pointed partisan remarks at the Democrats' most likely choice for Presidential candidate, Barack Obama. He opened a new theater of partisan war with his comments that alluded to a United States under the Democrats that would be much like Britain under Neville Chamberlain. He said that some Democrats were acting in the same way that some Western leaders did when they appeased Hitler in the run-up to World War II.

He said it was foolish to consider appeasement, and scoffed that some brilliant rhetoric would so engage the terrorists that they would cease to be a threat. Of course he did not name Obama and the White House denies that the comments were aimed at him.

There can be no doubt that this was a calculated risk. Senator John McCain has been alluding to Obama as the favored candidate of Hamas and attacking the junior senator for his willingness for "tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions, and is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe."

"It is a serious error on the part of Sen. 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 who says that Israel is a stinking corpse," McCain said.

Of course he does not support talks with Hamas but the Republicans have seized on the issue to show weakness and are now evoking memories of the holocaust and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in an attempt to define Obama as weak.

Sometimes I think Miley Cyrus would make a better president than Bush. I guess this is a taste of how nasty this election is going to be.