Bush says McCain is "ready to lead"

WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush on Tuesday urged Republicans to rally around his chosen successor, John McCain, calling him right on the Iraq war and declaring him "ready to lead" the United States.

Bush declared that McCain "understands the lessons" of the September 11, 2001 attacks, including the need to "stay on the offense" against terrorists, and called him "one senator above all" in his support for the war in Iraq.

"He is ready to lead this nation," Bush said in excerpts of what had been planned as a 15-minute speech in person until Hurricane Gustav battered the US Gulf Coast, three years after the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

But the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama charged that Bush was merely passing the torch to a candidate who would offer four more years of "disastrous" policies," trying to saddle McCain with the president's legacy.

Nearly eight years after winning the White House, Bush was to speak by satellite for less than eight minutes to his party's national convention in a mutually agreed long-distance show of support for the Arizona senator.

The vastly unpopular president's support is both blessing and burden for McCain -- Bush rates more highly among core Republicans than the senator, but risks alienating independents who will decide the November 4 election.

Obama and his allies have sought to paint McCain as essentially bringing the United States another four years of Bush, whose job approval ratings slump around 30 percent.

Bush, who bested McCain in the bitter battle for the Republican White House nomination in 2000, focused in the excerpts on decorated Vietnam War veteran McCain's life story while playing up his national security credentials.

"John McCain's life is a story of service above self," said the president, an echo of the Republican campaign theme that McCain's service as a Navy pilot, five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and US Senate career have forged his White House mettle.

Bush also played up the national trauma of the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, which led Bush to war in Afghanistan and which he invoked to justify the US-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein.

"We live in a dangerous world. And we need a president who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: That to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain," said Bush.

The president also stressed McCain's "maverick" image, which has taken a beating over the past year as the senator has reversed his positions on key policies in ways that make him more appealing to the party's core supporters.

"John is an independent man who thinks for himself. He's not afraid to tell you when he disagrees," said Bush.

Bush said McCain's "independence and character helped change history" because of his support for the January 2007 escalation of US troop levels in Iraq, which has helped yield starkly lower levels of sectarian violence.

"Many in Congress said it had no chance of working. Yet one senator above all had faith in our troops and the importance of their mission -- and that was John McCain," he said.

The US president, who took office in January 2001, said he was "optimistic" that McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, would beat Democratic rival Barack Obama in the November 4 elections.

"When the debates have ended, and all the ads have run, and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates -- and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket," said Bush.

The Obama team hit back at Bush with a sardonic statement from campaign manager David Plouffe.

"George Bush enthusiastically passed the torch to the man who's earned it by voting with him 90 percent of the time," said Plouffe.

The statement said McCain would "continue this president's legacy for the next four years, his disastrous economic policies, his foreign policy that hasn't made us safer, and his misguided war in Iraq that's costing us 10 billion dollars a month."

The man George Bush needs may be John McCain, but the change America needs is Barack Obama," said Plouffe.