Think George W. Bush struck a nerve this week?

The lamest duck of all was thousands of miles away from American soil, yet inserted himself into the presidential race in a big way.

A brief rundown:

• In Israel commemorating that great nation’s 60th anniversary, Bush says Democrats favor “appeasement” of terrorists, who he likens to Nazis.
• Barack Obama, though not mentioned by name, issues a statement rejecting Bush’s comments and saying they distort his views.
• John McCain blasts Obama’s comments in a speech to the NRA.
• Obama slams Bush again, saying the president “did something that presidents don’t do” and that “alienates us from the rest of the world.”
• Republicans say Democrats are overreacting; McCain criticizes Obama’s experience and questions his judgment.
• Obama blasts McCain for “embracing” Bush’s attacks.

Not bad for 48 hours!

After the war in Iraq and seven years of Bush foreign policy, his remarks in Israel on Thursday left the entire Democratic party fuming.

Their likely presidential candidate was quick to fire back in kind.

“After almost eight years, I did not think I could be surprised about anything that George Bush says, but I was wrong,” Obama said. “The president did something that presidents don’t do - launch a political attack targeted toward the domestic market in front of a foreign delegation.”

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After a brief layoff, fear-mongering is back in full effect!

President George W. Bush did not name Sen. Barack Obama by name, but it’s undeniable that his remarks today were aimed at the Democratic Party’s likely presidential candidate and others.

The thinly-veiled attack Thursday was made by Bush in Jerusalem, where he was marking the 60th anniversary of Israel’s sovereignty, but went so far as to suggest that Democrats actually favor the “appeasement” of terrorists.

NOTE #1: For some perspective, this is not only the least popular president in U.S. history talking, but a man who believes the best show of solidarity with troops sent to wage an unnecessary war is to quit golf.

“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, speaking to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

“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.”

Doubts about Obama with Jewish Americans were stoked earlier this month by Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee-to-be in the 2008 race, who dubiously called Obama the “favored candidate” of Hamas.

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President George W. Bush warned in an interview that Democratic candidates’ plans to withdraw abruptly from Iraq could “eventually lead to another attack on the United States” and would embolden terrorists.

“The United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of signals throughout the Middle East,” he told the Politico and Yahoo! News.

“And it would shake everybody’s nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we’re trying to defeat.”

For the first time, Bush revealed a deeply personal and important choice he made to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

Bush said he made this critical policy decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad:

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

NOTE #1: Starting an unnecessary and endless war, however? That signal is cool. This is also the first time we’ve seen the act of playing golf equated with disrespect for U.S. soldiers. Anyone want to buy a set of used clubs?

NOTE #2: The picture above was taken in 2004! Not only is Bush’s argument probably the dumbest thing we’ve ever heard, it’s not even true!

Follow the jump for more amazing George W. Bush quotes from the interview …

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Special thanks to a reader who sent us the link to this photo. A French translation of a tag on an American company’s clothing sold in France speaks for itself.

Please remember to wash with warm water, dry flat and not to iron it - and that 48.3 percent of us voted for John Kerry.

Because it’s real, this photo may be our all-time favorite - even better than our previous favorite, the photo-shopped, faux “Welcome to Connecticut” sign apologizing for George W. Bush being born on Nutmeg State soil.

Follow the jump to see that classic…

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Jenna Bush and Henry Hager are officially married as of Saturday, in a day marking the first wedding of a daughter of a sitting president in 16 years.

The most recent was the first President Bush’s daughter, Dorothy - Jenna’s aunt - who tied the knot in 1992. This wedding was a bit different.

Away from the spotlight, the Jenna Bush-Henry Hager wedding reflected their penchant for privacy and preference for the casual over grandiose.

The down-home setting was a lakeside ceremony at President Bush’s secluded 1,600-acre Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Jenna Bush just couldn’t see herself getting married at the White House surrounded by antique furniture and oil portraits of presidents.

In Crawford, the corn is thigh-high, roads are named Cattle Drive and the Texas flag is painted on the rooftops of barns.

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The Iraq war and the U.S. economy are both in a desperate state, yet the brilliant Bush administration doesn’t see a connection between the two.

Some media reports have estimated the cost of the war in Iraq at around $5,000 per second. Despite this staggering cost, there’s been no apparent effort to figure out how we should pay for it.

Nor is there an end in sight. Details, right?

The political cartoon below addresses this issue - and the insignificance of the supposed economic stimulus plan put into effect this spring.

NOTE: This political cartoon was created by and is property of journalist and cartoonist Andrew Wahl. Visit his blog, Off the Wahl, for more of his work.

It isn’t every night that “celebrities” like Ashlee Simpson, Lauren Conrad and the Jonas Brothers descend on Washington, D.C., though many of them match the intellectual level of our chief executive (a frightening but true thought).

Those stars - along with Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Marcia Cross and Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick - were guests at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night in Washington.

President George W. Bush and Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson poked fun at themselves, the celebrities, and all three presidential candidates in front of an audience of the Washington press corps at the annual gala.

“Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney in the same room?” Bush said. “Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?”

Bush also joked about his daughter Jenna Bush, and her May 10 wedding to fiancé Henry Hager - likening her to John McCain.

“Senator [John] McCain’s not here,” the president told the audience.

“He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he’s not alone. Jenna’s moving out too.”

Jenna Bush, for her part, has indicated that she may not support McCain in this November’s election. Henry Hager is a former aide to Karl Rove.

President Bush later added, “Hillary Clinton couldn’t get in because of sniper fire and Sen. [Barack] Obama’s at church.”

During Craig Ferguson’s speech, he joked to the president, “By the way, Mr. President, you were fantastic on Deal or No Deal.”

The more he opens his mouth, the clearer it becomes that John McCain’s views on global affairs are rather consistent with those of the great George W. Bush.

Much like Bush, McCain sees the world in oppositional terms - us vs. them, good vs. evil. He speaks of taking the lead “in fighting the transcendent issue of our time” - an unending, undefined crusade against “evil.”

Really, we could end this post right now. But we’ll continue.

During the Cold War, the new, central tenet of neo-conservatism emerged - that America is locked in a battle with evil. The U.S.S.R. was evil - but this hazardous way of framing any and all conflict has prevailed ever since.

Bush’s foreign policy - his refusal to think for more than five seconds about any situation or consider diplomacy, his outright dismissal of the United Nations, his increasingly aggressive nuclear posturing - is a function of this.

John McCain maintains the same outdated, epically disastrous world view, no matter how “maverick” or “independent” he fancies himself.

DON’T KID YOURSELF: George W. Bush and his aspiring successor, John McCain, share the same bellicose, inherently dangerous world views, no matter what “criticism” the latter supposedly has regarding the former’s policies.

Like many conservatives during and since the Cold War, Sen. McCain has embraced this “moral” attitude that the United States is a force defending all that is good, battling the forces of evil. As if it could possibly be that simple.

• He has morphed this into an laughably simplistic, strategic guidebook.

• He rejects negotiation and coexistence out of hand. Even if this means mass casualties, unending conflict and unstated goals.

• He confuses our enemies - Sunni Al-Qaeda with Shiite Iranian extremists - not because he’s old (well, maybe a little for that reason), but thanks to the narrow-minded ignorance that assumes evil is a single, uniform entity.

John McCain may lambast Donald Rumsfeld and nitpick Bush on foreign policy, but that’s all it is. The fundamental principles, or lack thereof, are essentially the same, and cannot be allowed to continue in such reckless fashion if our once-respected nation is to repair its relationships with the rest of the world.

In a world of ambiguity, marred by deep-rooted and rapidly-transforming threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and, yes, global warming, such a dumbed-down, overly nationalistic approach will inevitably fail.

It has, and it will. Vote for this man at your peril.

So President George W. Bush appeared on Deal or No Deal for some reason. He may or may not think he is seeking a third term in the White House, and he may just be bored and looking for attention. Over here!

Seriously, does he have nothing better to do? At least the WWE spots with Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton helped expose each to many voters… or something. Why the heck is Bush doing this?

Not that it matters of course. Here’s the clip …

You have to love George W. Bush mocking his own abysmal approval ratings. We’d give him credit for being self-deprecating, except that he’s being that way after, y’know, doing an abominable job as U.S. President.

How can we be expected to pass up the chance to post a George W. Bush photo like this, no matter how irrelevant it might be to the topics of the day?

Below, the President of the United States cozies up to a like-minded creature during an Easter event on the White House lawn. Some deep policy discussions ensued…

  [insert your own George W. Bush quote / punchline here]