Obama seizes on appeasement flap

By: Carrie Budoff Brown
The Politico
May 16, 2008

WATERTOWN, S.D. – By most measures, the American public is not focused on Iraq. Polls show the economy is more prominent in the minds of voters, the media is spending less time covering the war and the presidential candidates are barely debating it.

But with President Bush this week likening negotiations with “terrorists and radicals” to Nazi appeasement, foreign policy has clawed its way back into the center of the political conversation, teeing up an issue that Barack Obama and his aides view as a winning one for the campaign.

Consider Obama’s response over the last 36 hours. The campaign hit back before Bush had barely set foot Thursday outside the Israeli Knesset, and then redirected its fire at presumptive Republican nominee John McCain a few hours later. Obama offered another sharp response Friday at a town hall meeting, accusing McCain and Bush of “dishonest, divisive attacks,” and continued the pointed critique afterwards at a press conference.

In what one aide described as a preview to the general election debate on foreign policy, the unrestrained response signaled Obama’s intent to position the Iraq war as a defining issue against McCain, casting aside fears that have long plagued Democrats about being portrayed by Republicans as soft on national security.

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