"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. 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."
That's actually an elegant turn of phrase for someone who has not historically been a strong public speaker. What's more, its an absolutely true statement and one that bears repeating. It has always been -- and should always continue to be -- the policy of the United States to not negotiate with terrorists. We can't legitimize their cause by having a dialog with them. They are not reasonable people and not interested in peaceful co-existence with the U.S. or Israel so what kind of diplomatic relations would we hope to have with such people?
In his comments, Bush did not make a direct attack on any individual person or any political party. But based on the furor that was stirred up in the Democrat party, you would have thought that the President called them out by name. The politician that took the greatest personal offense at these comments was Barack Obama who said that Bush was labeling him as an "appeaser" of the worst kind, similar to those that tried to negotiate with Hitler. He went on to characterize Bush's words as an "appalling attack" and just the sort of thing that creates division at home and that ostracizes us abroad. Given that Bush was speaking to a group that included many Holocaust survivors and people who have been attacked by Islamic terrorists for 60 years, I would venture to say that the only people who found Bush's comments divisive were the ones being criticized: terrorists and those who appease them.
What has since been revealed by members of the White House staff is that this was a reference to former President Jimmy Carter who, against the advice of the State Department and despite widespread criticism of his decision, took it upon himself to travel to Israel last month and meet to negotiate with the leader of Hamas in an attempt to inject himself into the Middle East peace process. (And this, ladies and gentlemen, is commonly referred to as appeasement.) Bush's comment was not directed at Obama at all. It's worth mentioning, though, that Obama has promised to meet "without preconditions" with the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and also with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. That is not quite appeasement, but its not that far off.
You remember the Rorschach inkblot test, right? Someone shows you a strangely shaped inkblot on a card and you reveal what you see. Because your mind can transform the image into a variety of different things, the object you see is supposed to reveal something about you. Obama just failed the political equivalent of the Rorschach inkblot test because he interpreted Bush's comments about appeasement to be directed towards himself.
Bush held up a card with an inkblot that appeared to resemble someone who has a fundamentally flawed foreign policy and whose weak diplomacy skills only serve to appease terrorists and then asked "What do you see?"
Obama said "I see me!"
=MV=
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