Bush vs. Carter — not Bush vs. Obama
Barack Obama made a decision yesterday to make an issue of a brief passage in the Knesset speech by President Bush. Though the President never mentioned the Senator by name, and spoke only of those who “seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals,” Obama seized on the remark and launched a major controversy, claiming that the White House (despite consistent denials) clearly intended to make a “false political attack.”
As I noted yesterday, this decision on the part of Obama involved obvious political calculation: Bush is less popular than McCain, so why not occupy a few days worth of sound bites in a Bush vs. Obama exchange?
The problem for the Democratic candidate is that while trying to associate his rival, Senator McCain, with President Bush, he may have inadvertently linked himself with a figure even less popular than the President: the sanctimonious and appalling Jimmy Carter.
Today in Saudi Arabia, White House aide Ed Gillespie (traveling with the president) shouted to the press that in his remarks Mr. Bush had Mr. Carter in mind, not Senator Obama.