MORNING READ

President Bush likening Barack Obama’s calls for diplomacy to appeasement have started a conservative blogger pile-on. But while they criticize Obama, Democrats push back by pointing out statements they see as hypocrisy from Bush’s candidate, John McCain. With the Senate still in session, conservatives are wary of McCain and others slipping illegal immigrant amnesty into legislation. But they may have fewer allies on the issue after the November elections, one blogging handicapper writes.

Hot Air’s Allahpundit joins Israel’s Knesset in applauding Bush’s criticism of Obama, arguing that Obama’s Democratic defenders don’t understand the United States could be appeasing Iran by directly talking with its officials. Obama and the State Department want to reason with Iran when they should instead follow Bush and ask countries if they’re “with us or against us,” writes Andy McCarthy at The Corner. Bush should go even further than he has with his speeches and stop Condoleezza Rice from urging Israel to negotiate with Hamas, writes Lisa Schiffren, also at The Corner.

McCain, however, was open to talks with Hamas in 2006, something that takes away his credibility on the topic, writes MyDD’s Jonathan Singer, who links to an interview with the Republican dug up by the Huffington Post. The Stump’s Noam Scheiber finds irony in Bush’s speech, since the president talks about ending fear a few paragraphs before he exploits fear in attacking Obama. And Josh Marshall finds one of Obama’s attackers, right-wing radio host Kevin James, unable to say what former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did to appease the Nazis, even though James repeats the word “appeasement” over and over again in an interview.

Keeping up the McCain criticism, Arianna Huffington writes that he is engaging in “pure unadulterated fantasy” when he runs down a long litany of accomplishments – ending the Iraq war, Osama bin Laden