If his mouth is open…

Conservative talking head Laura Ingraham once said about Barack Obama not wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin, “It just goes to show he’s not ready for the big time.” However, she could easily have said the same about her president, George W. Bush, on his trip to Israel this past week. George Bush has proven time and time again that he’s not ready for the big time. He continues to make that case every time he opens his mouth. In a speech intended to be given in celebration of Israel’s 60^th year as a nation, George Bush managed to slip in a bit of partisan politics by comparing those in America who would create a dialogue with our supposed enemies as 'Nazi appeasers.'

While Bush didn’t mention any names, it’s obvious that he was talking about the Democrats (since the Republicans do not use their words; they just indulge in preemptive military strikes), and he was more than likely referring to Barack Obama, who has encouraged greater dialogue with Syria and Iran. While Bush’s handlers claim he wasn’t talking about anybody in particular, they all admitted that Bush’s speech could have been interpreted as taking a swipe at Obama. Folks, that means that they wanted it to be interpreted that way. It’s difficult to understand why President Bush would bring up such an association with Nazis, given the fact that his grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped finance the Nazi party through his shady dealings with Nazi industrial, shipping and banking interests. But that’s a different article for another day. Today we’re talking about the president’s shameless use of this event for political purposes.

In just eight years, George Bush has managed to set American diplomacy back hundreds of years. It is an administration completely uninterested in diplomacy. Instead it employs the neo-con theory of pre-emptive strikes against those who will not bend to America’s will. If the intelligence doesn’t justify these wars, the Bush administration twists the intelligence to meet its needs or, failing that, simply lies to achieve its goals. This administration’s immediate answer to even the smallest amount of conflict is to flex America’s military might, such as sending a battleship to the Gulf as a warning to Iran. Talking to any nation that doesn’t fall in line with America’s ideology is out of the question. And anybody who suggests creating a dialogue with these nations is painted as ‘weak on terrorism’ or unpatriotic.

If George W. Bush were truly a leader, he would have put the election aside and used this event to highlight our long-standing alliance with Israel. However, in his determination to use his office to influence the outcome of the elections, our fearless leader squandered it on nasty, partisan politics. As has been the case so many times over the past eight years, George Bush is again exploiting the office of the U.S. presidency for political purposes. He has tarnished America’s once respected reputation. He is an embarrassment.