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Let's call out Bush's act for what it is: treason
George Bush has appeared before a foregin government and attacked the presumptive Democratic nominee and likely 44th president of the United States. Politics should stop at the water's edge. If George Bush wants to jump back into the political fray, he can do so in his own country. But attacking the future leader of America in front of a foregin government is nothing less than an act of treason. If a Democrat were to appear before a foreign government and trash our country's leaders, we all know that the Republicans would be trotting out the "t" word.
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Comments (12)
Yes, I agree, I think this is the most salient issue. Not just that Bush is responsible for weakening the US (he is), not just that he is trying to start a war with Iran (he probably is), not just that he is Godwinning the ME conflict. Suppose Obama does become President, as is likely; Bush's words will have done incalculable damage to our relations with Israel. He is not upholding the dignity of the office.
May 15, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just watched Tweety administer a total ass whuppin' on Hardball. He was interviewing Mark Green and some loudmouthed Republican knucklehead about Bush's comments.
Matthews certainly seems to shift with the wind sometimes, but he can also be like a pit bull on some issues, and he absolutely chewed this Republican guy's leg off! Gory, and great fun. If you missed it, watch it at the 7:00PM showing.
May 15, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
anyone pan the audience in the Knesset to see who might have been holding up the Queen of Spades?
May 16, 2008 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just like none of the things the right were calling treason were treason neither is this. It is stupid. It is wrong. It shows once again that Bush is moraly bankrupt. But it is not treason.
May 16, 2008 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, let's save the word treason for uhm actually acts of treason. This reactionary position is no better than Coulter's "Treasonous Traitors" book. You start to sling inflammatory rhetoric around that's beyond the pale it only weakens your position and we're in the right here, no need to stoop to the right's attack machine level. What Bush did was wrong. It stands alone as wrong and needs no push over the edge into accusals of treason.
May 16, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
U.S. Const., Art. III, Sect. 3
There is the reason this is the only crime defined in the Constitution and there is a reason why its defintion is so restrictive. History, both ancient and contemporary, taught them that the charge of "treason" is the most pernicious threat to liberty, to freedom of thought, expression and action, in the arsenal of tyranny. There's a reason Republicans are so fond of this word. It's the same reason that all totalitarian minded governments have been so fond of it. If they control of the definition of loyalty and patriotism and can criminalize behavior, speech or thought that deviates from that defintion, they are 3/4 of the way along the road to completely controlling everything.
I have no desire to trade one bunch of would-be tyrants for another.
May 16, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is nothing compared to the Iraq war. The fact that this doofus hasn't been impeached is a commentary on Congress AND the American people.
May 16, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree it's not treason, just yet another example of how morally and intellectually bankrupt the man is...
My hope is that once he is out of office the only trip he will be taking overseas is to Den Haag along with his buddies Rumsfeld and Cheney.
May 16, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Pelosi was in Israel and said "Bush's policies have made Israel less safe" the wingnuts would slobber all over themsleves to label it treason.
Bush used another nation's bully pulpit to trash his domestic political adversaries.
It may not be treason, in the traditional sense, but it is certainly betrayal, in the spiritual sense.
Considering his family history, Bush might be wise not to mention Nazi appeasement in any venue.
Some very smart, old Jews still remember what Bush's grandfather did to enable the theft of their pre-Hitler money, artwork and bullion.
Maybe they will inform their fellow Israelis about it, so they know why Bush always speaks "out of the corner of his mouth."
May 16, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
i don't know if the president committed "treason" in israel.
but i do suspect the president of aiding, abetting and/or, if you will, "appeasing" an iranion agent in the united states.
as reported by newsweek, mr. bush's gift to iranian appeasement -- ahmad chalabi -- "has been removed from a top Iraqi government post over his continued contacts with suspected Iranian operatives, according to U.S. officials."
the same chalabi trusted by the bush administration for his phony intelligence on iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
the same chalabi showered with millions of u.s. taxpayer dollars by the bush administration before and during the war to convince iraqis of american good intentions in iraq.
the same chalabi whose baghdad compound was raided by iraqi and american authorities in 2004 for "suspected fraud in a government ministry" and for harboring "an agent [or agents] of Iranian intelligence."
the same chalabi authorized by the bush administration for secure access to sensitive information and subsequently investigated by the fbi in 2004 for tipping iran to top secret developments related to the u.s.'s ability to crack iranian communication codes.
the very same chalabi who sat behind laura bush as an honored guest at the president's last sotu.
so why isn't ahmad chalabi, de facto iranian agent, behind bars, assigned to our gitmo resort or rendered to a place far far away from any future opportunity to cause the united states further damage?
ask president bush, our dazed and confused iranian appeaser.
May 16, 2008 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
But attacking the future leader of America in front of a foregin government is nothing less than an act of treason.
That's absurdly silly. And when Barack Obama is president, I want him to feel perfectly free to go abroad and attack potential future Republican leaders of the United States.
May 16, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
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