More on Appeasement

Where there's smoke, theirs fire. If people get upset at getting called Appeasers, maybe that's because the accusation strikes close to home. This is a popular explanation of why people are upset over President Bush's comments in Israel. For an example let's check out Emmett Tyrell's latest article.

The mere mention of "appeasement" apparently sets off paranoid tantrums amongst members of the political class. Once deemed a very enlightened tool of statecraft, "appeasement" has become a slur, a hate term. Speaking before the Israeli Knesset, President George W. Bush associated appeasement with those who "believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." Kapow! The Democrats went on the offensive, though they had not been mentioned.

Kapow? Did the Democrats punch President Bush? No they disagreed with his characterization. As for the theory that President Bush didn't mention the Democrats, everybody on both sides of the aisle knew who he meant.

With this kind of partisan hackery you can't win for losing. If Democrats don't respond to attacks like this, they are pansies, if they do respond they have guilty consciences.

I Heartily Endorse this Article

This article is by Paul Roberts and it's entitled "Your Friend, the Kitchen."

If we’ve lost our kitchen skills and our connection to food, both can be regained. Schools are bringing back home economics classes. Cooking classes are gaining in popularity, and some cookbook publishers are simplifying recipes to help novices find their way.

Yes, we’ve heard about kitchen renaissances before. But this one comes with a potent incentive: When done thoughtfully, home-cooked food is not just healthier, safer and better tasting but much cheaper than the factory version.

Yep. I love to cook myself, and I enjoy cooking food as well. Cooking is great!

McCain's Role and the Core Issue of the Day

It's hard to know what the core issue of the day is; it seems to change from minute to minute. But certainly near the core has to be the issue of Iraq and the War on Terror. Anmericans are questioning whether or not President Bush's approach to the War on Terror has really made us safer, if the war in Iraq was really necessary.

Today's article by Tony Blankley is intended to cheer the Conservative Masses by encouraging conservatives to remember how great Conservatism is and how Conservative American's are. But then he gets to this interesting section.

Moreover, the Democratic Party has not even advanced its programs to a plausible credibility yet. Their argument is almost completely a negative one: "Kick the Republican bums out." Thus, their central theme is the credulity-strained slogan that a vote for McCain is a third vote for Bush. Whatever McCain is, even the Democrats know he has almost been the anti-Bush (and anti-Republican) these past many years. Not too many elections are won on an obvious lie.

First of all, of course it's nonsense to say that Democrats haven't put together a positive agenda. If you visit the Democratic Party Website or the Websites of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama you will see all kinds of positive things they want to do. The fact that such proposals don't have the same media juice as Reverend Wright says more about the media than it does about the Democratic party.

Secondly, the statement that electing McCain is a third term for President Bush is really quite fair. If you consider their entire career and positions, well yes, there are some real differences between President Bush and Senator McCain. But when it comes to the key issue of the day, Iraq and the War and Terror, there aren't that many differences. Both Bush and McCain think invading Iraq was both necessary and desirable. Both favor a "get tough" approach to Iran which probably involves military strikes if not a full scale invasion (now they may not get this, but they want it). Both oppose negotiations with Iran or Syria or the Palestinians. The only area they disagree is on Torture, and even there McCain's opposition is somewhat weaker than he portrays it.

The Terrorist Monkey Can Not Be Negotiated With

Or so says Uspace, who posted on a post down below. I agree. Monkey's, like many Republicans, lack the cognitive abilities to rationally discuss with. On the other hand but the United States and Israel have been negotiating with our non-monkey enemies for decades, as Pat Buchanan noted in the article referenced below.

The dingus has a website as well, basically it's abstract questions that aren't quite as clever as he or she thinks they are.

Sometimes Agreement is worse than Disagreement

Patrick Buchannan's latest article takes President Bush to task for his appeasement comments in Israel. This is not as enticing a prospect as it first appears. First of all he takes Presiden Bush to task for criticizing Hitler's reasonable demands to get back Danzig and the Sudetenland. Not an auspicious start.

But then Buchannan notes how Ronald Reagan, a Conservative Hero, didn't seem to think it a foolish delusion to meet with the Communists. And Israelis seem to think sitting down with Palestinians, like Arafat, isn't the world's worst idea either. He concludes with this interesting argument.

. . . JFK's diplomacy in the missile crisis may have averted a nuclear war. And Eisenhower, Nixon, Gerald Ford and Reagan all met with foreign dictators with blood on their hands, without loss to America, and sometimes with impressive gains.

What has Bush's refusal to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran done to make either Israel or America more secure?

That's a damn good question.

Momentary Intermission

I am on the road so you are going to have to think for yourselves today. Don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow.

Appeasement

Thanks to President Bush's speech in Isreal the other day, we are back to Appeasement. A subject I'm sure I've talked about before. Apparently 57 times, although some of those may be repeats. Here's the quote I'm responding to, from David Limbaugh's latest article.

. . . when Mr. Bush, in addressing Israel's Knesset, compared those who want to negotiate with today's terrorists and tyrants to an American senator in 1939 who lamented that Hitler's march into Poland might have been avoided "if only I could have talked to Hitler," Obama, other Democrats and the mainstream media went ballistic.

. . . Democrats can choose to interpret everything through their partisan prism, but Bush was wearing his presidential cap in Israel and was stumping not for John McCain, but for the United States of America. It's too bad, but understandable, that Democrats so often find themselves on the wrong side of our national interests. President Bush was acting abundantly presidential and in furtherance of our national interests when assuring Israel and warning Iran that we will stand by our closest Middle Eastern ally.

I'd like to point out that whatever you think of the practicality of invading Iran, President Bush and Senator McCain would like to take military action against Iran.

Well let's see if I can recycle something I wrote previously. Here's something that fits the bill, responding to David Limbaugh's brother Rush.

Rush practically froths at the mouth when it comes to what he calles Appeasers and "the appeasement crowd." By this he means all those who question the impending war with Iraq. Of course the term Appeasement is totally bizarre in this context. The term arose in Inter-war Europe where England (particularly) and other Europeon powers acquiesed to Hitler's desires to increase his terroritory. In other words the appeasers gave Hitler concessions in hopes that he would not attack them. The policy stands as a pitiable failure that strengthened a vicious tyrant and weakened the west.

So what concessions do Modern Appeasers offer Saddam. Well we aren't ready to kill him. That's about it. Are we offering him land? No. Are we giving him anything? No. The situation is akin to two muggers holding up a guy (admitadly the guy in this case is a vicious monster). The "Appeasers" say "Do as we say or we'll blow your head off." Rush would rather hear, "We are going to blow your head off no matter what."

Still holds up.

Of course in this case President Bush was trying to imply that if our ally of Israel was invaded, there's a good chance that a President Clinton or a President Hillary would do nothing but try to appease Iran. This is nonsense, and the Republicans know this is nonsense.

Your Weekly Rush - Everybody Sucks but Me

Here's Rush on his Presidential Candidate, John McCain.

. . . this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we conservatives are in a very difficult state right now. We can't vote for socialists. We can't go out there and vote for socialists like Obama or Clinton.

But, hell's bells, the Republican Party's nominated a candidate who spent decades pandering to these very people and these very elements and is still doing it as our nominee! He spent decades undermining our party. McCain-Feingold, amnesty, McCain-Kennedy. And this is the movement he now claims to be part of and whose support he seeks?

Rush is also concerned that if McCain wins the Presidency it will show the country that being doing these kinds of things, being kind of a liberal, is what wins elections.

The Evangelical Manifesto

Pointing you towards Slactivist's discussion of this document. He finds a lot to like in it and other things he is not so keen on, but his analysis does seem well reasoned.

The other bogeyman word here seems to be "secularism." Making this a bogeyman word leads to some serious confusion in the section of the manifesto subtitled, "A civil rather than a sacred or naked public square." What they're advocating here is secularism, but they've decided they can't call it that, so instead we get a page and a half endorsing secularism and the separation of church and state while simultaneously condemning "secularism" and the "strict separation of church and state." It isn't pretty.

Well worth reading.

Our Inspiring President

For those who don't know, President Bush has given up golf to support the Iraq War.

His [President Bush's] decision to give up golf in 2003 was a result of the war, he said. "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. . . . I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Not sure what to say about that; but it does lend itself to bitter joking, doesn't it?

The Most Liberal Senator in Congress

I'm keying off of an article by Brent Bozell III here. It's his typical drivel; the left wing media is in the tank for Obama and hates McCain. Parenthetically that view is so at odds with reality that I am curious to see if people outside of Right Wingers are going to buy it.

But that's not my main point. In the middle of his dopey article, he makes this statement.

He was asked if he could handle the coming "assault" from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that could be heard manufacturing its wicked armaments off stage. What lies will they stoop to tell? Blitzer suggested told Obama they're going to "paint" him as a tax-and-spend liberal.

"Paint" him? Who needs to add any paint to that picture? That is the truth -- he's the most left-wing senator in Washington -- and they know it.

How is Barack Obama the most left wing Senator in Congress? Well the National Journal keeps track how Senators votes and based on their votes assigns them a score. Four years ago John Kerry beat out all of his colleagues to become the most liberal in the senate and this year Obama somehow got the brass ring. What are the odds that two Presidential candidates are the most liberal in the senate?

Pretty high actually, when you consider both men had to balance their congressional duties with the rigors of the campaign trail. When you are running for President you can't show up for every single vote (which is why Presidential candidates often get dinged for absenteeism as well as Liberalism). Obama and Kerry had to pick their votes, and naturally picked those votes that mattered most to them. And theirs a natural tendency for those votes to be more liberal.

The National Journal knows this. I would guess many Conservative Commentators know it too; but that won't stop them from saying, over and over again, Obama is the most Liberal Senator in the Senate.