Analysis: Bush rallies Democrats behind Obama

President Bush achieved from abroad Thursday what Democratic leaders at home have failed to do: bring the Democratic Party together at the tail end of a bruising primary.

With his perceived criticism of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D) push for diplomacy from the floor of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Bush managed to unite Democrats behind the man who is the party’s likely next standard-bearer.

{mosads}Prominent uncommitted Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (Del.), strongly criticized the president for what is viewed as an attack on Obama.

At issue are Bush’s remarks in Israel in which he said it is a “foolish delusion” to think that negotiations with terrorists and radicals would yield results.

With Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) chances of winning the nomination waning, Democrats are increasingly turning their sights on getting the party onto the same page for the general election.

Many have called for a unity ticket or for a strong voice, such as that of former vice president Al Gore, to rise above the noise of the campaign and sort things out. But with Clinton vowing to stay in the race and many superdelegates still uncommitted, there has also been the prospect that the nomination will drag out until the convention, ­ a scenario that many Democrats fear because they think the party would have too little time to heal before the match-up with presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has sought to get superdelegates to commit to a candidate by the end of June, but, with the uncertainty over what will happen to delegates from Florida and Michigan, he has been unable to assuage fears that the primary will continue until the party meets in Denver at the end of August.

However, with his comments, Bush might have succeeded where Dean has failed.

The president’s remarks seem to suggest that he believes Obama will be the Democratic candidate.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said in his address. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all 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.”

Obama called this part of Bush’s speech a “false political attack.”

Though the White House said the remarks were not aimed at Obama, who has advocated using diplomacy with countries such as Iran, Democrats immediately came to the aid of the front-runner for their presidential nomination.

Pelosi, noting that it is tradition for U.S. politicians to refrain from criticizing the president while he is overseas, said “one would think that would also apply to the president when he’s abroad,” before adding, “His comments were beneath the dignity of the office of the president.”

Reid called the remarks “reckless and reprehensible.”

Biden, a onetime rival of Obama before dropping out of the race, was even more outspoken.

“This is bulls–t. This is malarkey,” Biden said. “This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country … and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”

Obama supporter Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the White House claim that the statement was not directed at Obama is “baloney.”

“Let’s be honest about it. There’s one candidate who has spoken out and clearly on this issue, and it was very clear to me the reference that was made,” Durbin said, adding, “I don’t know if this has ever happened before in history, where a sitting president has gone to a foreign country and spoken to their parliament and criticized a political candidate from his own country.”

Among the Democratic superdelegates to endorse Obama on Thursday was House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.).

“Barack Obama has laid out a foreign policy vision driven by principle and conviction, and he understands that our moral authority and our safety as a nation go hand in hand,” Berman said.

Combined with the math speaking increasingly in favor of Obama, a steady trickle of superdelegates flowing toward the Illinois senator and the endorsement of former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), Bush might have helped close the book on Clinton’s ambition.

Mike Soraghan and Manu Raju contributed to this report.