Jesus… was Bush drunk when he gave this speech? It certainly sounds like that from the way he slurred his words. Or maybe he’s suffered a stroke—that would explain a lot of things.
UPDATE:
At the suggestion of Don Joe in the comment thread, I’ve added this clip of Chris Matthews spanking some clueless righty. (This guy is paid to do talk radio, and I’m not? I could have answered Matthews question in a heartbeat.) As Matthews points out, if you’re going to accuse somebody of Neville Chamberlain style “appeasement,” you should at least understand what it is that Chamberlain did: let Hitler take the Sudetenland.
Appeasement is not talking to your enemies. It’s giving in to them.
President Bush never said Obama’s name, yet Obama clearly felt it was directed at him. Guilty conscience?
I will freely admit the President speaks Texan which only has a passing resemblance to English.
That’s one chimp on drugs for sure.
But it’s been that way since he stole the oval office.
Goldy, you really have to embed this video in this post as well. You’ll get no better evidence that Republicans are so completely out of touch with reality on this issue of “appeasement”.
Guilty conscience? If the Chimp had one, it should be guilty. Preston Gates, his grandaddy was a Nazi collaborator that made some cool cash off their attrocities. If the Knesset had any morals, they never would’ve invited the little criminal into their midst.
Preston Gates also was a involved in an attempted overthrow of the Roosevelt administration intent on using former military members to instill a Fascist government. He figured a totalitarian system was much better geared to deal with the Great Depression. Hmmm, a genetic disposition to dictatorship?
How silly is this?
FDR would never have advocated sitting with Hitler in 1940 or early 1941 – one does not sit with vipers and expect them not to bite.
Yet Barack Obama expressed willingness to enhance the credibility and prestige of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by suggesting he would meet with him without preconditions.
What a foolish thing to say, and Lord only knows how that emboldened the Iranian president to continue his rhetoric against Israel.
That so many Democrats are howling like stuck pigs proves less their outrage and more their embarrassment that on this they’ve screwed the pooch. Nancy Pelosi especially is estopped from having credibility on this issue after her slobbering all over Syrian thug/president, Bashar al-Asad.
Want to know how to provoke Israel into bombing the crap out of Iran? Make it feel abandoned by its historically strongest ally, the United States, as it siddles up to a country led by a scummy bugger who wants to “annihilate” Israel and “wipe it off the map.”
What George Bush said is both true and what Israel, as an ally and threatened country, needed to hear. What the Democrats have done is fail to see the forest for the trees and more or less signal Israel that they can’t be trusted to stand by its side.
Recognition and bi-lateal talks with the President of the United States should be the reward of positive behavior, not threats of genocide.
The Piper
Piper Scott @ 5
Guess which U.S. Senator that Bush quoted saying that we should have appeased Hitler?
William Borah.
And guess what party and state that Senator Borah was from?
The same party and state as your good buddy, Larry “Wide Stance”.
Senator Borah also supported stronger relations with the Soviet Union back in the 1930’s, in addition to his desires to appease Hitler.
Senator Borah had a lot in common politically with Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush.
Wow Chris just bitch slapped the fuck out of this right wing nut. And it’s SOOOO typical. These right wing fools just repeat slogans and buzzwords and haven’t a goddamn clue what they’re talking about. Again I say they have an ideology no facts. And that’s why it’s so dangerous to give them the keys to ANY political office.
If talking with our enemies is appeasing – then Ronnie Raygun and Trickie Dickie Nixon led the way – along with AWOL GW Bush who talked with Kadafee for christ’s sake.
Which was worse, Mr. President, appeasing Adolf Hitler, or, like your grandfather, making money from doing business with him?
Whoops. Freudian slip; should have been Preston Bush.
FDR would never have advocated sitting with Hitler in 1940 or early 1941 – one does not sit with vipers and expect them not to bite.
Don’t kid yourself. That had less to do w/FDR’s benevolence than his status among the banker class which, in Britain, was in serious jeopardy of being anilated by the Nazis.
@6…RP…
Larry Craig is no friend of mine, and my posts about him at HA ought to disavow you of that notion.
And William Borah was no foreign policy expert – isolationists, which is effectively what most HA Happy Hooligans are, aren’t either.
That your grandfather may have been hung for stealing horses – does that mean we ought to noose you up too?
Red herring – deal with people alive today and what they’re saying today.
It was foolish for Barack Obama to offer to speak with Syria or Iran without preconditions.
Were FDR alive today – or Truman or Kennedy, for that matter – heads would be shaking in disbelief.
What I do see here is a willingness to fall all over yourselves to kiss the feet (posterior?) of thugs like al-Asad and Ahmadinajad not because it’s wise policy, but rather because it runs contrary to Bush administration policy.
Spiteful and juvenile.
The Piper
Piper @ 5
“How silly is this?”
Good question. If the issue is really about the appropriate use of diplomatic talks, then why all the references to the “appeasement” straw man? Nobody is talking about giving away anything.
As for Obama enhancing the credibility of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with whom? The people of Iran? Islamic Jihadists? Other members of the Iranian Government?
Read Kenneth Pollack’s The Persian Puzzle. His account of the history of US-Iranian relations is rather solid, and that history is replete with Iranian misinterpretations of US diplomatic behavior. And, among those who really matter, Bush’s policy of diplomatic silence has as much, indeed more, of a chance of enhancing Ahmadinejad’s credibility as Obama’s policy of engaging in diplomatic discussions.
@10…SS…
It’s Prescott Bush, not Preston or Preston Gates…Sheesh!
Haven’t seen such old-line bashing of FDR from the left in a long time. Still carry an autographed photo of Henry Wallace in your wallet, do ou?
FDR wasn’t beholden to British or American bankers in crafting his pre-war policies toward Germany and Britain. Like Churchill, he saw the threat of Hitler, and, like a global chess game, he saw it several moves across the board in a way that Sen. Borah and other isolationists couldn’t.
In this respect, William Borah should be made an honorary HA Happy Hooligan.
The Piper
Richard Pope @ 9
I’m reminded of a scene from The Godfather, Part II:
5 PS
Uh, by 1940, Hitler had re-armed Germany, invaded Poland, Norway, the Low Countries, adn France. Russia had invaded Poland, the Baltics, Finland, and Britain and France were at war with Germany and Italy. It would not be surprising no wonder IF under those circmstances that FDR might not have “advocated sitting with Hitler,” but you can be damn sure that we still had diplomatic relations at that time. For example, he didn’t expel German diplomats until June 1941.
But comparing that to the nearly powerless president Ahmadinjad of Iran, which is a democratic nation and was an ally of ours in Afghanistan just six years ago?
What a bunch of weak sisters you Republicnas are–you see Hitler under every bed and want to blow everyone up because you don’t have the balls to act like the strongest, most confident nation on earth and talk to them like people. Republican belligerence is not a sign of strength–it’s the telltale sign of the coward.
FDr was supposedly neutral until Pearl Harbor. I think Ahmdinejad is dangerous and a fool – but we can thank Bush and his meddling in Iranian politics for the election of this idiot.
If it wasn’t for Bush’s pathetic saber rattling on Iran during the election – they would never have elected this fool in the first place.
Obama is right – we don’t talk to terrorists. However, if Iran (which is a country that has supported terrorism – same as Libya) wants to change – then we should not stand in their way. Right now, with all his ineptness and blunders, Bush is LOSING! In fact – if these idiots knew the difference beween shia and sunni – we should be allied with Iran against al qaeda.
Piper – you are a fool – the US will NEVER “provoke” Israel into bombing anyone – they will bomb anyone who threatens them – period. But they will use conventional weapons to pre-emptively take out nuclear – same as in Syria.
What happened to “increasing democracy in the Middle east”?
What happened to the “Iraq war will pay for itself and lower oil prices”?
What happened to our “great friends” the Saudis – who are now dumping US dollars and raising oil prices?
Bush and his allies like Piper have been an unmitigated disaster. In the meantime – bin Laden is rebuilding…the neocons and the conservatives who championed this unnecessary war have destroyed our economy, destroyed americaa lives, exhausted our military, failed to fight al qaida and ruined our standing and reputation in the world.
Democrats aren’t isolationists. We just realize that the war in and occupation of Iraq was a stupid idea and IS a stupid idea.
@15…DL…
The spectre of Adolph Hitler is very real in Israel where the Holocaust and its consequences are still a daily fact of life.
Want a more recent example? When Jimmy Carter appeased the Soviets causing them to think they had a green light to invade Afghanistan. Smooth move, Ex Lax!
The Piper
Give a coward a gun, and he’ll use it because he’s afraid. That is the history of the Republicans with the US military. We have invaded and occupied a nation that never attacked us (and was, in fact, really, really weak) because they are cowards.
I hear that Chamberlain guy was an appeaser.
Easy, pipester. You are making far less sense than even usual.
Wait a minute–naah. I’m wrong on that one. Yer still dingbattin’ a perfect thousand.
We spoke to the Soviets all the damn time when the world was closer to ending.
We also spoke to Mr. Hussein right before Bush’s cowboy war, warning them about chemical weapons and stuff. Simply refusing to speak with various good and bad folks is 5th-grade playground stuff, which is probably why it seems to be a giant part of our massively successful foreign policy.
In the meantime, I guess we’re doing just fine over in the Middle East by not speaking to anybody we really don’t like. How’s that war in Iraq going, sonny?
Maybe you should simply stop using words like “appeaser” that you don’t understand.
s/
Jim, a genuine musician who has never, is not, and will not ever attempt to operate a bagpipe assembly.
@16…CnR…
FDR was as neutral as I am…The only thing that prevented him from openly going to war against Germany was that he knew the American people weren’t there in their heads…yet.
Lend Lease, the sinking of the Rueban James, and other policies and acts made it abundantly clear who Roosevelt favored. He met with Churchill on a destroyer off the coast of Newfoundland. Just where did he want to meet with Hitler?
And he exacted revenge against isolationists and German sympathizers after war was declared. Charles Lindburgh wasn’t given the time of day, let alone an army air corps commission, so he had to be a civilian consultant in the South Pacific where he nevertheless shot down several Japanese aircraft while flying unauthorized combat missions.
While Israel will do what Israel will do, it will be prompted to be more aggressive in doing it if it sees that its #1 ally is getting weak-kneed in dealing with Iran.
Iran needs to be fully isolated from the international community, with every effort made to cut off external interaction.
General Electric needs to stop doing business with Iran via foreign subsidiaries, for example. Efforts such as those by the pension authorities in several states to disinvest in companies doing business with Iran need to be stepped up.
Iran needs to be isolated with the reason for it being the policies of its government with that reasoning being loudly pronounced.
To engage that government serves only to encourage more anti-Israel, genocidal rhetoric.
Criticize Bush all you want, and rag on the managment of the war as you will, but I still contend that what it has done is focus the conflict there and in Afghanistan as opposed to someplace else.
And the conflict will continue, a President Obama notwithstanding. He will have to take them on in his own right once he learns that al Quida does not share his vision of the Politics of Hope – theirs is the politics of jihad.
The Piper
18
You don’t seem to know what appeasement is, and of course, you are changing the subject, which is what you guys always do instead of engaging when someone calls you on the stupid stuff you say.
But yes, the Holocaust is kind of a live fucking issue in Israel, which is was so inlammatory for the president to raise its spectre in the Knesset over a situation that does not compare in any way. Except to Republican cowards, who would rather fear that everyone is Hitler than think.
Israel is a wealthy, successful, first-world nation and needs to get off the U.S. welfare gravy train.
@23…DL…
I see BHO trying to pacify Iran by offering it legitimacy and participation at the highest level of international diplomacy. I don’t see him discussing any negative consequences toweard Iran for its misbehavior.
Oh, he’ll make general statements on how they shouldn’t have nukes, but nothing that clearly makes it known that a nuclear Iran is an Iran that will shortly be only in the past tense.
The Piper
Peiper Scott @ 18
“The spectre of Adolph Hitler is very real …”
That is ADOLF Hitler, not ADOLPH Hitler.
Prescott Bush did business with Adolf Hitler.
I don’t know whether Preston Bush or Preston Gates did business with Adolph Hitler.
@26…RP…
Thank you for the correction.
The Piper
Funny, if you followed Bush’s logic, then Nixon should have been tried for treason for opening diplomatic relations with the Chinese and the Soviets, and Reagan and Bush I should have never spoken a word with them either.
Speaking of Republican claims of naivete, Bush speaks in the Israeli parliment one day to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation as a state, then flies right to Suadi Arabia and asks them to please pump more oil so they can drive down prices for their own product. Surprisingly, they refuse. I guess nobody at the White House thought it might not be a good time to try to play like good friends to both sides?
Reminds me of Reagan putting Marines on the ground at the Beirut airport as “peacekeepers”, holding an undefendable position, and then ordering the USS Missouri to fire on Muslim militias in the mountains in support of Christian militias fighting there. Not too long thereafter, a suicide bomber blows up the Marine barracks in Beirut. I guess the Lebanese muslims didn’t catch the fine distinction between the U.S. Marines, who were within easy reach, and the U.S. Navy, which wasn’t. Who could have guessed this would be the result????
Not to meantion Rumsfield and Cheney’s decision to play both sides in the Iran/Iraq war, trading arms for hostages with the Iranians, and giving real-time intel info to the Iraqis, and assuming that neither side would find out about the other?
Geez, these guys are rank amateurs when it comes to foreign policy, yet they think they know so much…. Foreign interests are cleaning our clocks and laughing at us “rubes” and our attempts to navigate foreign affairs.
It may be that by calling Bush out yesterday, Obama has brought an end to a long and frustrating charade. The way so many in the media and even in the ranks of the Democratic party have tried to act as if neoconservativism made any sense reminds me of an old sketch from Saturday Night Live involving a group of people at a fancy restaurant who’ve just been served a bottle of really bad wine. After they have their first sip, they’re all blathering about how the wine has “unique qualities” and “a remarkable nose” and so on, until one woman blurts out, “I think it tastes like cow piss strained through a dirty sock!” Then everybody else does a spit take.
Too many people who should have known better have been trying to choke down Republican cow piss for far too long.
Michael 24: Well, that welfare gravy train was initiated by Pres. Carter after the Camp David accord. Israel was getting 3 Bill, Egypt 2 Bill, etc.
@30
I don’t care who started it and at one point in time they may have needed, but their time of need has past.
25 PS
So our guys talk to their guys, the meeting happens, and this gives Khatami or Ahmadinejad enhanced prestige in the eyes of whom? And what does this enhanced prestige allow him to do? What, in other words, are we afraid of? Given the curent prevailing opinion of the U.S. in the Middle East, don’t you think it might reduce their prestige to be seen engaging with us?
But here’s another thing. If we can achieve our strategic goals vis-a-vis Iran without military force:
(a) We get off on the cheap–if you haven’t been paying attention, it’s costing us $12-15 billion per month in borrowed money to do our stupid thing in Iraq.
(b) We begin to repair our tattered reputation as an honest broker and as a nation that other nations can trust. You do know that we are not trusted now, don’t you? And I mean by our allies as well as our enemies.
I’d like to know to what “misbehavior” you refer. If you mean pursuing nuclear energy, they are completely entitled to do so under the terms of the NPT to which they are signatory. If you mean “intefering” in Iraq, I assume you are ignoring both our own illegitimate invasion and occupation (pot calling the kettle, don’t you think?) AND the fact that Iran is already tight with our hand-picked government there by Iraq’s invitation. If you mean pursuing nuclear weapons, I think you need some proof.
Funny, but I thought you guys were all about not telling other nations what you might or might not have in mind? And you’re ignoring the fact that Iran is years away from any possible nuclear capability IF they were pursuing one (which we don’t know) and more years away from any potential threat to the US IF they were to desire such a thing (which we don’t know). And by the way, the poen secret is that Israel is nuclear and can take care of itself. If we really care about a nonproliferated ME, we should be pressuring Israel to declare their weapons and submit to inspections too, hmmm?
All in all, we stand to gain much more from negotiation than from your preferred brand of mindless bellicosity, which if I imagine it were done to you would incline you to arm yourself much more than to disarm. If someone were threatening your home and your family, would you throw your guns in the trash?
Israel is a nation of highly industrious people, sitting on a plot of land without the reaources to support an industrialized nation of anywhere near its population. In a way, it’s like a miniature model of what the United States is likely turning into–that is, if we don’t keep dumbing ourselves down and paying to get our asses wiped by someone else.
Consequently, Israel’s survival in its present form is largely dependent on the United States, largely in the form of outright aid (cash and arms) and to a degree through its business partnership with us–it’s amazing how much of our military technology over the last 40 years has been partly or wholly developed there.
A few “general statements:”
Jesus, you can kind of find stuff easily if you look.
What’s even worse is that Bush hireling Dana Perino, who is responsible for explaining the day’s news to the media and public, has never heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
She must have gone to a private school. Or maybe she was home schooled … by her parents … on a yacht 10,000 miles from land …
“Appeasement is not talking to your enemies. It’s giving into them.”
Could be that this same “talking” is confused with the get nothing done, form a committee and spent a few million culture of the left?
Let’s see if Pooper is willing to go rattle sabres in Iran. Walk down any Iranian street talking your shit Pooper. See where it gets you.
The bottom line is this. Ronnie Raygun, Trickie Dickie and AWOL Bush were all “appeasers” by your own definition. While this is another GOP bullshit trick – like flag pins and pastors – it won’t work and shows just how utterly desperate you punks really are.
Lessee….so “appeasement is giving to your enemies”
Shall we talk about where Saddam first got his toys? How about that photo of a smiling Don Rumsfeld earnestly shaking his hand?
Might we bring up the fact that Osama bin Laden is largely our own creation, and how it was perfectly fine when he was a “freedom fighter” pestering the Russians, but it wasn’t so good when the CIA couldn’t find his “off” switch?
How about Bushie going and begging our dear friends the Saudis to let us buy more of their oil, so they use the proceeds to provide even more funding for Al Queda?
And oh, we’d better not talk about all the shady back-channel dealings the Republicans seem to have had with Iran and other sworn enemies of the United States in order to help them win the White House. News flash: not everyone believes that Ronald Reagan’s magical personality was the reason the embassy hostages were let loose almost as he put his hand on the Bible to take the oath of office.
I could go on, but what’s the point? The trolls don’t believe a word, and they don’t realize nobody else believes them any more.
Artfart:
And we allied ourselves with the Russians against Hitler.
Your point is?
@18: Poor Piper – a student of history you are not. the invasion of Afghnistan LED to the downfall of the soviet Union – brilliant move not to oppose a superpower getting caught in a treasury draining and influence losing quagmire – now if only the bush administration had an ounce of historical knowledge.
By the way – talking to your enemies is NOT appeasement – the stupid GOP doesn’t understand this – giving in to them is. If the GOP is too stupid to talk and not give in – then they should not be governing. The mistake with Hitler was not to talk to him – it was to give in to his expansionism. Freeking republicans don’t understand history so they are condemned to repeat it.
@38 – Yup – It was Reagan who had the secret deal for the hostages and the Iran-contra conncetion – the big “appeaser”. Drug money from the CIA turned into arms to buy the hostages – glad we didn’t “appease” Iran – we just bought them off.
@41…CnR…
So…are you telling me that Jimmy Carter had it in mind all along for the Soviets to invade Afghanistan thus leading to its demise?
Well, Go-o-o-lllllly – Sha-Zam, Sgt. Carter (no relation)!
Give that Jimmy another Nobel!
Talking to a maniacal thug like Ahmadinejad without him first repudiating all his anti-semitic, genocidal, Holocaust-lite rhetoric would be appeasement.
There are some things that are simply so far beyond the pale as to warrant total isolation and excommunication from civilized society.
Would you invite an avowed racist who shoots his mouth off to a party at your home where you know he will seriously offend your guests? Of course not (but with the HA Happy Hooigans, one can never tell), so why extend recogniztion and legitimacy to someone like Ahmadinejad?
Negotiation without precondition lends credence to his hate and bolsters him in the pursuit of turning rhetoric into reality.
As an aside…as for Iran and its so-called “rights?” And legitimate pursuit of nuclear power? The pre-WW II appeasers said much the same stuff about Germany’s “right” to re-arm and assert it’s national identity by re-militarizing the Rhineland.
Been there, done that.
But Churchill was on to them and called B.S. on Germany and its so-called “rights.” In 1934, he wrote in Collier’s magazine:
I don’t care what Iran says it will do, I only care what it does, and right now, the world knows Iran cannot be trusted to live up to its end of any bargain – what it will do with nuclear capability is make weapons irrespecitve of its pious pronouncements of today.
That being the case? Bugger Iran and its so-called “rights.”
The Piper
@33
Yep, just like Japan and Singapore.
This is pure, unmitigated equivocation. You are, literally, redefining the meaning of the word just so you can press an absolutely ridiculous argument by analogy.
Damn, not even Tweety buys that one.
DJ ‘proves’* again that a little Phil 101 is a dangerous thing.
(* Review your Phil 101 crib sheet, re Karl Popper, for context.)
Chris Matthews found someone even dumber than Chris Matthews to scream at? Sends tingles up my thigh.
Leave it to Rapid-Response Goldstein to post a topic more than 24 hours after MSM beat it to death. And note the complicity of our What-Liberal-Media?! liberal media in falling totally in the tank for Democrat spin.
Yesterday’s MSM played a few seconds of Bush (including the Texas-Tease stumble over the treacherous word ‘tank’) before playing an almost-endless loop of loopy Biden and Kerry and Granny Pelosi and Bogtrotter O’Bama whining that Bush had launched a swiftboat torpedo at BHO.
Note @1 that Bush named nobody. His likely Goldycrat target, if there was one, was Killer Rabbit Carter who never met a left-wing psychokiller he didn’t like.
So … here’s where we’re at: Democrats launching an unprovoked unilateral preemptive elective swiftboat attack, an attack conducted thru your sock-puppet media.
(Four years ago MSM’s Mark Halperin said the suck-up MSM, totally tanked for Very Hairy Kerry, was worth 15 points to Democrats. Almost enough. Expect more for your money this year.)
Goldy, as a practicing communist like MSNBC, you cut the video off at the point that Matthews (student of history) stated that the USS Cole bombing happened during the Bush Administration. If you don’t know history don’t quote it. (Chris Matthews, 5/15/2008
@ 47
OMG! Tweety is a fucking idiot. I believe “gadfly” would be the appropriate term. You won’t get much of an argument from lefties on that.
Indeed, that’s half the point! If an idiot like Tweety can smack you down, then you’re even more of a complete idiot than Tweety is.