Obama to GOP: Bring on debate

He upholds stance on foreign policy

By DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE PRESS SERVICES

WATERTOWN, S.D. - Barack Obama fired back Friday, rebuking President Bush and Republican rival John McCain for "dishonest, divisive" attacks in suggesting that Democrats were willing to negotiate with terrorists.

Pausing before a town-hall meeting in a livestock arena, he told several hundred residents of this farming town of 20,000 that he welcomed the idea of turning the presidential contest into a debate on who is better fit to guide the nation's foreign policy.

"If George Bush and John McCain wantto have a debate about protecting America, that is a debate I will have anytime, anyplace," the Democrat said to a cheering crowd. "George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for."

Obama cited a war fought on the premise of uprooting weapons of mass destruction that were never found, the failure to catch Osama bin Laden and turning Iran into the "greatest beneficiary" of the Iraq war.

McCain, he said, had a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."

Obama's comments were in response to the president's speech Thursday before the Israeli Knesset, in which Bush likened a willingness to meet with "terrorists and radicals" to appeasement of the Nazis.

Obama took that as a reference to his own stated openness to meeting with the leaders of Iran and Syria. "That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and alienates us from the world," he said.

Bush and McCain, he said, "aren't telling you the truth. They are trying to fool you and scare you because they can't win a foreign-policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. Not this time, not this year."

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The McCain campaign was quick to respond.

"It was remarkable to see Barack Obama's hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn't even mentioned," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. "These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama."

Meeting with reporters later Friday, Obama expanded on his town-hall remarks. He argued that tough-minded diplomacy and engagement with rivals is a bipartisan foreign policy that dates to Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan.

SURPRISE ON BOTH SIDES

"That has been the history of U.S. diplomacy until very recently. I find it puzzling that we view this as in any way controversial. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s. ... When Kennedy met with Kruschev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."

He also noted that former President Nixon opened talks with China, "with the knowledge that Mao had exterminated millions of people."

In Saudi Arabia, presidential counselor Ed Gillespie expressed shock that Obama and other Democrats had taken offense at Bush's words.

"The fact is that if you look at the words, they're pretty consistent with what the president has said in the past, and frankly consistent with what many of them have said. They have said that - I think most have said that we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists or extremists," Gillespie said.

In his speech to the Israeli lawmakers, Bush said, "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have beenwrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.'"

Gillespie said that the White House had anticipated that some might take that as a rebuke to former President Carter, who met last month with the leaders of Hamas, the militant group that holds the majority of seats in the legislative council of the Palestinian Authority. As for the reference to Hitler, Gillespie said the president's Jewish audience "was taken into account."

Gillespie expressed annoyance with the reaction of Democratic congressional leaders.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called Bush's remarks "reckless and irresponsible." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush had behaved in a manner "beneath the dignity of the office of president." Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, accused Bush of violating the unwritten rule against playing politics overseas.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden of Delaware noted in an interview with CNN Friday that the Bush administration has negotiated with rogue leaders in North Korea and Libya.

BIDEN: 'PURE HYPOCRISY'

"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."

Asked Thursday whether he thought Obama was an appeaser, McCain sidestepped the question and said: "I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why hewants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That's what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people."

That made McCain a target for political commentator James Rubin, a former spokesman for the State Department under President Clinton. In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, he wrote that he had interviewed McCain on the subject two years ago.

"I asked: 'Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge ?'

"McCain answered: '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 towards Hamas, because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so - 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 Mc-Cain for the British network Sky News, wrote that McCain is "guilty of hypocrisy" and accused him of "smearing" Obama.

Bounds, the McCain spokesman, offered a rebuttal:

"There should be no confusion, John McCain has always believed that serious engagement would require mandatory conditions and Hamas must change itself fundamentally - renounce violence, abandon its goal of eradicating Israel and accept a two state solution. John McCain's position is clear and has always been clear: The president of the United States should not unconditionally meet with leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah."

Information for this article was contributed by Mike Glover of The Associated Press, Naftali Bendavid of The Baltimore Sun, Kate Phillips of The New York Times and Matthew Mosk of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 1, 8 on 05/17/2008