Nancy Pelosi said that George Bush’s speech at the Knesset was ‘beneath the dignity of the president.’

I finally read the speech (available here) and I wonder what she found so objectionable. Could it have been this passage?

We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation.

or maybe this one?

We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world.

or this?

When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America’s closest friends. And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.

Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.

Was Ms Pelosi at odds with any of this? Were these words beneath the dignity of the president? Read the whole speech; it was one of George Bush’s best. Her condemnation says much more about the blind reactionary rage and values of the critics than of the president.

It also shows more “hope” than anthing I have heard on the campaign trail.

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