James Baker on appeasement

I'm still pretty angry over what Bush said about appeasement in front of the Knesset, the Israeli Legislature, some days ago. I know, it may seem like old news to some of you, but I don't share that view. Just because our agenda-setting gatekeepers in our corporate media no longer deem it news, doesn't mean it isn't. In addition, there are some developments along this front that I'll get to in a minute.

Anyway, the footage above is former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, appearing on Hannity & Colmes to talk about appeasement. I wish I could find a longer clip of this - a seasoned and respected diplomat explaining to the uneducated Hannity and the shrinking violet Holmes what diplomacy actually entails.

However, even this minute-long footage is a good example of Baker not towing the neocon line that "talking to our enemies is appeasement." And I also love it how Hannity seems to be swallowing his tongue - the guy just doesn't know what to say.

It's also not surprising that President Bush doesn't know the meaning of the word diplomacy, either. What I found particularly amusing (and tragic) was that Bush was willing to roll the dice in front of the whole world, saying in no uncertain terms that talking to our enemies is not a good idea. He made himself look like the imbecile he truly is.

Whether Baker meant to or not (I'm guessing he did), he pretty much blew Bush's assertion out of the water about not talking to our enemies. While Baker has obviously never been president, it's pretty clear that his pinkie knows more about diplomacy than Bush's entire body. In fact, what Bush knows about diplomacy you could fit on the head of a needle and still have room for the yellow pages.

What's more, in recent days, Israel and Syria have sat down for talks at the peace table. No truth the the rumor that Bush will re-appear before the Knesset to call Israel's leaders appeasers.

Here's wondering if deep down, Baker doesn't regret his intervention (at the behest of Bush 41) in the whole Florida mess in the fall of 2000, which ultimately paved the way for the Supreme Court to anoint Bush president. If Baker could go Back to the Future. ...

Kevin James gets beaned by a Hardball

This is another piece of footage that slipped through the cracks last week, amidst all of the appeasement coverage, when President Bush disgraced himself, America and the presidency by likening Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain during a speech in front of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature. Chamberlain is the British prime minister who carved up Czechoslovakia for Adolf Hitler before World War II in the hopes it would satiate Hitler's lust for territory and power. Likening Obama to Chamberlain because Obama believes it's a wise course of action to at least talk to our enemies is laughable enough, but some of the dopes who attempted to join the Bush chorus on television was probably the funniest thing about the whole incident.

Anyway, the video above is probably the best single piece of footage I've seen this year, maybe even since I started this blog over two years ago - it's Chris Matthews absolutely taking apart conservative radio talking head Kevin James, who wouldn't know appeasement if it bit him in the face. By about the mid-way point of Matthews' thundering away at James, I almost started to feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

A partial transcript, courtesy of C&L:

Matthews starts out by saying:

Chris: I want to do a little history check on you—what did Neville Chamberlain do wrong in 1939? What did he do wrong?

Kevin: It all goes back to appeasement. It’s the key term.

Chris: No, what did he do, tell me what he did?

Kevin: It's the key term.

Chris: You have to answer this question. What did he do?

Kevin: It's the same thing, it puts it all…

Chris: Well tell me what he did?

Kevin: It's appeasement.

Chris: What did Chamberlain do wrong...

Kevin: His actions, his actions enabled, energized, legitimized...

Chris: What did Chamberlain do?

Kevin: It's the exact same thing.

Chris: No stop, Kevin. I'm not going to continue with this interview unless you answer what that thing is. What did Chamberlain do in '39, tell me? '38?

Kevin: Chris, it's the exact same thing alright?

Chris: What did he do? [yelling] What did he do![/yelling]

Matthews just took him apart. I loved how Chris ends the interview, too: "Don't use the term appeasement if you don't know what it means."

Ouch!

I also thoroughly enjoyed Matthews' reference to the fact that Dana Perino, President Bush's press secretary, didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, and admitted as much, during an appearance on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! program a few months ago. Wow - if I'm the press secretary in the White House (Heaven forbid) and I didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, I certainly wouldn't admit it.

Chalk up Kevin Jones (and Perino, for that matter) as two more conservatives who don't know what the hell they're talking about. And I have to confess, it's pretty fun pointing it out.

Some on the right accuse "libruls" of being "elitist" and "arrogant" when pointing these things out. Quite the contrary, but when you use these terms or claim to be some sort of expert, you really should know historical references before you start throwing them around to back up a president who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, either.

For the record, I know who Neville Chamberlain is - he's the NBA player who once scored 100 points in a game, right? Just kidding.

Our National Embarrassment outdoes himself

I wonder where all of the sheeple are now who smashed Dixie Chicks CDs and protested the band's comments back at the beginning of the Iraq War. Because what President Bush said yesterday before the Knesset, the Israeli Legislature, pales in comparison to what the band said in England in March 2003. (Predictably, they will be mimes this time around.)

Bush is in Israel to observe the country's 60th anniversary, so of course he didn't miss a valuable opportunity to make a complete fool of himself. To wit, speaking at the Knesset yesterday, Bush had this to say:

"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," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli 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."

That has to be one of the most disgraceful comments I have ever heard an American president say in a foreign land. Ever. Using an overseas trip to try to score political points back home during an ally's historical moment is outrageous, even for Bush.

The unfortunate part about Bush's comments is that our disgrace of a president has about eight months left in his presidency to not only embarrass himself, but America, an by extension to do great harm to our foreign policy, which is already in tatters after having suffered from over seven years of dogged neocon ideology.

I never thought even Bush could or would go this low, but it's a clear indication that Bush will do or say virtually anything to ensure that the Democrats aren't successful this November in widening their margins in Congress and recapturing the White House. And if this is any indication, the Democrats had best be prepared to pull out the stops themselves. But, I can only hope that they don't stoop this low.

Not surprising were the responses to Bush's disgraceful comments...

From Senator Barack Obama:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel."

"Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy -- to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

When given an opportunity to reject Bush's comments, Senator John McSame predictably provided Bush with an echo chamber:

"Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain," Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. "I believe that it's not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn't sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home."

Asked if he thought that former President Jimmy Carter, who struggled with the hostage crisis, was an appeaser, Mr. McCain replied: "I don't know if he was an appeaser or not, but he terribly mishandled the Iranian hostage crisis."

An asinine comment from a man who will do or say just about anything if it will get him elected. What's more, McCain seems to be peeking into the play book of the 9-11 Profiteer himself, Rudy Giuliani. Here's one of Rudy's ads from his ill-fated presidential run:

And it looks like McSame is picking up right where 9iu1ian1 left off - parroting the GOP talking point, which is total b.s., that the Iranians let the hostages go one hour after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office. Are you kidding me? The only thing more absurd than this line of reasoning being spewed forth, first by America's Profiteer, and now McSame, is the number of people who will believe it.

I do get tired to writing the same thing over and over, but it was President Carter who feverishly worked to free the 52 American hostages in Iran, but the Iranians didn't want to free them until he left office, in a blatantly transparent attempt to embarrass Carter. And yes, I'm old enough to remember it. An interesting footnote to that entire chain of events is how President Reagan, in a magnanimous gesture, let Carter ride Air Force One to bring those hostages back to the United States. I'm guessing part of that reason is because he knew how hard Carter worked to free them.

Anyway, like the parrot he is, of course McSame picks up that Rudy talking point and now he's running with it. And it needs to be called out for the propaganda that it is.

Bush's and McCain's comments underscore a trend that has been taking hold in the GOP for years - that any meaningful discussion cannot take place about the War on Terrorism by a Republican without the obligatory World War II reference, or the words Nazi, appeasement, Neville Chamberlain, etc. So, of course McCain had to throw in a Chamberlain reference, no doubt to appease his GOP base support, which he is still having trouble shoring up.

Again, students of history know that it was Republicans who were initially opposed to our involvement in the war (until Pearl Harbor), and it was Democrats who brought us into the war and ultimately helped win it (and who also exposed corporate corruption and war profiteering by Republican-friendly businesses during the war, just like today). Therein lies the irony to all of the GOP World War II references.

I don't always agree with DNC Chairman Howard Dean, but his statement about Bush's comments is one of the most succinct, appropriate things I've heard come from him in years:

"On the same day John McCain is talking about putting partisanship aside, the President launched a cheap political attack while on a state visit honoring the 60th anniversary of Israel, one of America's greatest allies. Bush's outrageous comments are an embarrassment to our country, not based in fact and bring us no closer to our goal of ending terrorist attacks against Israel and bringing peace to the region. If John McCain is really serious about being a different kind of Republican, he'll denounce these remarks in the strongest terms possible."

Howard shouldn't be holding his breath, but he's right - Bush comments ARE a disgrace to our country, and are perhaps an unprecedented political attack from foreign soil. Yet another way that the Bush Presidency is breaking new ground in a very unfortunate way.

Of course, turncoat Senator Joe Lieberman wasted no time defending Bush's comments:

"President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and that holds that--if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers--they would cease to threaten us. It is critical to our national security that our commander-in-chief is able to distinguish between America's friends and America's enemies, and not confuse the two."

Of course, now that it looks like Obama is going to be the Democrats' nominee to take on McCain, the attacks are already starting. And that's okay, because quite frankly, it's only going to illustrate just how hapless and desperate Republicans are to hold onto power - power that's circling the bowl, headed for the sewer this November.