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McCain: Obama Naive and Inexperienced

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May 15, 2008 2:34 PM

ABC News' Bret Hovell and Jennifer Parker Report: Sen. John McCain said Thursday Sen. Barack Obama's willingness to sit down with the president of Iran shows "naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment" -- and indicated he will make the issue front-and-center in the general election if Obama becomes the nominee.

The presumptive Republican nominee was questioned about President Bush’s remarks to the Israeli Knesset -– which have been interpreted as an attack on Obama –- this morning when the President said that "some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

Bush said negotiating with terrorists and radicals is a "foolish delusion" and then "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.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," Bush said.

Watch video of Bush's comments on terror HERE.

The Obama camp responded to McCain: "It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush's disgraceful political attack in the afternoon.  Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.

During a Democratic presidential debate in July, Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet separately "without preconditions" during the first year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea; Obama said, "I would." However the Obama campaign maintains he would expect certain basic conditions to be met.

Obama fired back against Bush today in a statement that read, in part: "It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria."

McCain weighed in Thursday, highlighting the president of Iran's comments about Israel.

Watch the VIDEO HERE.

Saying he takes Bush at his word that he wasn't speaking directly of Obama, McCain said, "It does bring up an issue I will be discussing with the American people, and that is why does Barack Obama, Senator Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism?" McCain said in the back of his campaign bus.

"What does he want to talk about with, with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad who said that Israel's a stinking corpse, who said that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, who’s sending the most explosive devices into Iraq, killing Americans?" he said. "The point is that peace through strength is the way we achieve peace in the world. That’s the point. I will debate this issue with Senator Obama throughout this campaign."

Going farther, McCain continued to connect Obama with Ahmadinejad and highlight the Iranian leader's incendiary comments about Israel.

"I think Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terror that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans and wants to wipe Israel off the map and denies the Holocaust," McCain said.

"It is a serious error on the part of Senator Obama that shows naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment to say that he wants to sit down across the table from an individual who leads a country that says and says that Israel is a stinking corpse, that is dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel."

May 15, 2008 in Hunter, Duncan, Kucinich, Dennis, Tancredo, Tom, Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (300)

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McBush may be experienced, but it is not the kind of experience our country needs at this point in time (if ever).

McCain can't figure out who he is: the Maverick who opposed Bush and occasionally had some reasonable thoughts, or the Bush3 candidate, who will keep us in Iraq and move us further into a recession.

Enough!

Obama 2008 -- Yes, WE CAN!!!

Posted by: jackt51 | May 15, 2008 2:44:20 PM

naiveté! What an elitist word. I don't even have that key (é) on my US keyboard, it isn't even in my dictionary.

Posted by: tomj | May 15, 2008 2:44:56 PM

to John McCain--why dont you be a good boy and take your geritol and settle down for your afternoon nap!!!! At your age you should not rile yourself up like that !!!!!!

Posted by: dan a | May 15, 2008 2:47:47 PM

McCain takes it to wimp Obama

Posted by: geevill | May 15, 2008 2:48:41 PM

Tomj - try using spell check or is that too elitist for you also?

Posted by: KLO | May 15, 2008 2:49:35 PM

why is talking with them so dangerous?
Clearly there is plenty to talk to them about.

Posted by: Louis | May 15, 2008 2:50:36 PM

McCain is old and stupid

Posted by: jim | May 15, 2008 2:51:32 PM

how the hell are you supposed to make any movement forward if you aren't talking to them???? we weren't talking to north korea and ohhhh guess what they were furthering their nuke programs! Suprise! McCain I used to have some respect for you, but for me its Obama or no one this year.

Posted by: matt | May 15, 2008 2:51:43 PM

how the hell are you supposed to make any movement forward if you aren't talking to them???? we weren't talking to north korea and ohhhh guess what they were furthering their nuke programs! Suprise! McCain I used to have some respect for you, but for me its Obama or no one this year.

Posted by: matt | May 15, 2008 2:51:44 PM

1st it's 100 years, now it'll be solved in four. AND we'll catch bin Laden, AND we'll solve "global warming" (by what blotting out the SUN?!?) And we'll even fix the economy by adding even MORE tax breaks for big corporations that they can use to offshore more jobs overseas, while you get audited and imprisoned if you forget to dot the i's and cross the t's on yours. And if you STILL can't get a jobm you'll just have to go back to school in your 30's and 40's, and get even more job "re-training", while you'll still be paying off your debt from the last four years of your (now worthless) college education. Oh how wonderful it would be to live in Johnny's fantasyland. I'm afraid all of that contact around Shrub has rubbed off, on John. Willful stupidity isn't senility, as least I don't believe...

Posted by: blog | May 15, 2008 2:51:49 PM

Republicans have no credibility on this issue. The party the drove America into the ditch has little to offer. Bush was a shameless hack for what he did and anyone who isn't honest enough to admit it is just a partizan ass. Like McCain.

Posted by: Northern Observer | May 15, 2008 2:51:52 PM

Sen. McCain should go back to the ancient times and chill with other old dudes. His memory is beginning to fail him. McCain for president in the old people's home in Florida.

Posted by: Owen | May 15, 2008 2:52:19 PM

Didn't Obama pledge his allegiance to Africa when he joined his racist church? He would be doing America a great favor by moving there permanently.

Posted by: Mack | May 15, 2008 2:52:49 PM

Angry paranoid defensive Obamabots. No a pretty sight.

Posted by: geevill | May 15, 2008 2:52:58 PM

Obama IS naive and inexperienced. McCain speaks the truth. Also read the ABC report on "Obama helps supporters get millions" This is a great article, thank you ABC for investigating this. The problem is that the media, and Obama supporters are not holding him to the fire. Logical thinking permits speculation that more gaffes and errors/scandals will be surfacing on Obama. The Republicans will use this against him, along with their claim that he IS NAIVE. The dems are putting up someone who is not qualified to run for president of the U.S.

Posted by: Mare | May 15, 2008 2:53:57 PM

Angry paranoid defensive Obamabots. No a pretty sight.

Posted by: geevill | May 15, 2008 2:54:17 PM

McCain had his arms broken in a prisoner of war camp. Obama whines when he thinks people are being mean to him, or when he's eating his waffles.

Posted by: Mack | May 15, 2008 2:56:43 PM

Secretary of Defense Gates said Wednesday that we “need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them.”

Secretary of State Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates.

Perhaps McCain should get a grip and figure out what the h**l is going on before he starts shooting his mouth of with absurd (and desperate) Republicon talking points

Posted by: Eileen from Maine | May 15, 2008 2:57:35 PM

If you were not naive, how could you be an elitist???

Posted by: fat cat | May 15, 2008 2:58:00 PM

Please don't blame Obama, he just said what a politician would say as campaign language...

Just like his stance on War in Iraq - no time table, NAFTA - campaign language..

He didn't mean it so please forgive him...

Posted by: True Truth | May 15, 2008 2:58:03 PM

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