Bush’s Appeasement Speech: McCain and Obama Respond
On Thursday, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, George W. Bush gave a speech before the Israeli Knesset (congress). One part of Bush’s speech has been controversial:
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. We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
The Obama campaign and some political analysts have interpretted Bush’s statement as a direct attack on Barack Obama’s policy of willingness to “meet with our enemies”. Obama hit back and proclaimed he “welcomes this debate”. In campaign rallies, John McCain focused criticism on Obama’s foreign policy ideas.
The general election battle between Obama and McCain has started in earnest. Some interesting Democratic Party stories are still playing out, but now the media is paying much more attention to John McCain, and, of course, Obama vs. McCain.
George Bush does have a way with words. Some Bush supporters claim that Bush was referring to Jimmy Carter. It really doesn’t matter now, and who wants to spend more time looking into “Bush’s brain”?
“Appeasement” is one of the most historically-politically charged words in the foreign policy lexicon. At least we have a good history lesson and it’s the first real salvo in a critically important foreign policy debate. If you never have, now is good time to read a book about World War II (or at least read these links: Munich Agreement, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill). Appeasement is when you give up something important (for example, Czechoslovakia) to your enemy with the hope that the concession will end their treachery.
This foreign policy debate is just beginning.
I enjoyed watching MSNBC’s Chris Matthews give a history lesson to right-wing talk show host Kevin James. Rachel Maddow’s introduction and follow-up interview with Chris Matthews are good too!
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