It was as if a dentist had just jabbed at an exposed nerve in a
rotting tooth, inducing a shrill howl from his helpless
patient.
President Bush, saluting Israel on its 60th birthday, stood
before the Israeli Knesset last week and recalled a simple fact of
history. “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.”
Within minutes, Democrats in America were howling in rage that
Bush, who had done nothing more than recount historical fact, was
calling Senator Barack Obama, their presumptive presidential
nominee, an appeaser. From Obama to Pelosi to John Kerry to Joe
Biden to Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton (the latter undoubtedly
already in a mood of “see-I-told-you-so”) all felt the instinctive
need to defend both Obama and their party from the sting of an
appeasement charge.
What makes the instant reaction so telling is that the only
American mentioned, and not even by name, was long-ago 1930s U.S.
Senator William Borah from Idaho. Borah was — wait for it — a
Republican. That being the case, why the instant outrage from 21st
century Democrats?
There is a reason, and a considerable reason at that. Modern
Democrats have long since adopted Borah’s isolationist, pacifist
philosophy lock, stock and barrel. In the 1930s, with FDR in the
White House, it was the GOP that was stuck in appeasement mode as
Hitler began his rise. It was a position so untenable, so
politically damaging, that Republicans spent twenty years in
presidential exile while Democrats Roosevelt and Harry Truman
drilled the gospel of internationalism, American exceptionalism,
and a strong military into the very political bones of
Americans.
Yet the idea of appeasement did not die. While Republicans
eventually won back the White House at last by nominating
Eisenhower, the commanding general of D-Day fame, the forces of
appeasement were regrouping. With FDR’s one-term ex-vice president
Henry Wallace at the head of the pack, the appeasement wing began
to establish itself inside the Democrat party.
There was, at first, a ferocious struggle. Truman was appalled,
labeling Wallace privately as “a pacifist 100 percent. He wants us
to disband our armed forces, give Russia our atomic secrets and
trust a bunch of adventurers in the Kremlin…. I do not understand
a ‘dreamer’ like that.” Wallace and his followers, Truman
concluded, were “becoming a national danger.” But Truman prevailed,
and it was presumed that the ideas Wallace represented had finally
faded in the trials of the Cold War.
Like a virus biding its time, however, the appeasement
philosophy of Wallace lay dormant inside the Democrats’ body
politic, quietly out of sight through two Stevenson nominations and
the presidency of JFK. But it finally began to manifest itself
during LBJ’s term, angrily exploding into public view over the
issue of Vietnam. In time, led by Wallace supporter George
McGovern, the appeasement disease took over the Democrats’ body and
soul.
Osama bin Ladin has famously described America as a “weak
horse.” His point, that what looks like a strong champion in fact
tires easily and gives up, is surely still his conception of
America. With good reason. Within America itself, modern Democrats
have indelibly fixed their image as America’s own weak horse, the
political party for which appeasement and running up the white flag
has become a historical reflex.
IT’S FAIR TO ASK for examples. Sadly, there are many.
Beginning with Truman’s baseline description of Henry Wallace in
1948 (“He wants us to disband our armed forces, give Russia our
atomic secrets and trust a bunch of adventurers in the
Kremlin….”), the names and issues after the JFK/LBJ era that
reflect not just a consideration but a devotion to appeasement by
Democrats would show — and only in part — the following:
* 1971: A young John Kerry testifies before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. He tells lawmakers of U.S. Vietnam policy:
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
confidently asserting that “we cannot fight communism all over the
world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”
* 1972: The Democrats’ platform for their nominee, one-time
Henry Wallace supporter Senator George McGovern, states: “The
majority of the Democratic Senators have called for full U.S.
withdrawal by October 1, 1972. We support that position. If the war
is not ended before the next Democratic Administration takes
office, we pledge, as the first order of business, an immediate and
complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces in Indo-China. All U.S.
military action in Southeast Asia will cease. After the end of U.S.
direct combat participation, military aid to the Saigon Government,
and elsewhere in Indo-China, will be terminated.” Nixon defeats
McGovern in a 49-state landslide.
* 1975: Democrats cut off all aid for Vietnam and Cambodia. The
Communists overrun the two nations, murdering millions and setting
up “re-education camps.” Thousands of Vietnamese refugees flee to
the South China Sea, many of the “boat people” drowning before they
can be rescued.
* 1977: President Jimmy Carter tells Americans in a speech at
Notre Dame that they have “an inordinate fear of Communism.”
Instead of calling for victory he proudly proclaims that “I believe
in detente with the Soviet Union. To me it means progress toward
peace….We hope to persuade the Soviet Union that one country
cannot impose its system of society upon another, either through
direct military intervention or through the use of a client state’s
military force, as was the case with Cuban intervention in
Angola.”
* 1979: Carter admits shock as the Soviets invade Afghanistan
after he has negotiated a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with
Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev. At the signing ceremony in Vienna,
Carter had famously kissed Brezhnev on the cheek.
* 1979: Carter looks on as a Soviet-backed government replaces
the Somoza government in Nicaragua.
* 1979: Carter abandons the Shah of Iran as the Iranian
Revolution is led to power by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The shah,
appalled at Carter’s abandonment of Iran as a once fierce U.S.
ally, tells an aide, “Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter]
may unleash on the world?” Carter’s UN Ambassador, Andrew Young,
predicts, “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint,” while
Carter’s ambassador to Iran says, “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like
figure.” Newsweek quotes another Carter aide as saying
Khomeini possessed “impeccable integrity and honesty.” In November,
the American Embassy in Tehran is overrun by Iranian students with
the approval of the Ayatollah. American embassy staff is seized as
hostages. They are held for over a year, released literally the day
Ronald Reagan is sworn in, having defeated Carter in a
landslide.
* 1983: While Reagan sets out to rebuild the American military
and win the Cold War outright, Democrats embrace the idea of a
nuclear freeze. When Reagan installs Pershing Missiles in Europe to
challenge the Soviet SS-II missiles, a furious Senator Edward
Kennedy says of Reagan’s strategy for victory: “I reject the absurd
theory that we can have fewer nuclear bombs tomorrow only if we
build more nuclear bombs today.” Former JFK/LBJ Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War disaster
and now a committed dove, calls Reagan’s approach “madness.”
* 1983: Reagan’s decision to liberate Grenada from a takeover by
murderous Cuban thugs loyal to Castro is opposed by future
Democratic Party nominees Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry.
* 1984: The Democrats nominate Carter’s Vice President, Walter
Mondale, on a platform that insists America should “initiate and
establish a Peace Academy,” while demanding that “we can no longer
afford simplistically to blame all of our troubles on a single
‘focus of evil,’” a reference to Reagan’s description of the Soviet
Union. Mondale loses 49 states to Reagan.
* 1988: The Democrats nominate Massachusetts Governor Michael
Dukakis, who says, “Balancing the budget would require hard choices
mostly on the defense side. I don’t see much room for cuts on the
domestic side.” Dukakis campaigns as the candidate who opposes the
Midgetman missile, development of the cruise missile, deployment of
the Pershing missile, building the Trident submarine, the
establishment of a 600-ship Navy (a Reagan goal), the testing and
deployment of anti-satellite weapons, construction of newer and
faster aircraft carriers, and a refusal to order the Massachusetts
National Guard to Central America for two weeks of training until
ordered by a federal judge to do so. Says Washington Post
columnist David Broder, “…his approach to foreign policy comes so
close to renouncing the unilateral use of American power to protect
national interests…that it sometimes sounds as if the ghost of
Eleanor Roosevelt had taken control of his body.” Dukakis loses in
a landslide to George H.W. Bush.
* 1991: 45 of the Senate’s 54 Democrats, including future 2004
nominee John Kerry, vote against throwing Saddam Hussein out of
Kuwait. According to Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the future 2000
nominee of the Democrats, Tennessee Senator Al Gore, votes in favor
only in return for 20 minutes worth of television time to speak on
the Senate floor. With the Cold War over, Gore is tapped as
Clinton’s running mate to send a message that the JFK Democrats
have returned. Clinton wins with 43% of the vote.
* 1993: The World Trade Center in New York is bombed, killing
six and injuring over a thousand. The Clinton administration
decides this is a crime and not an act of war, prosecuting those
jihadists it can catch.
ONE COULD go on here. On and on and on. All during this period, the
Democrats’ instinctive urge to appease prevailed. From the moment
Clinton had America flee Somalia at the beginning of his term to
his decision not to respond seriously as America’s enemies attacked
U.S. embassies throughout his term, or even after the attack on the
USS Cole at the end of his term. Non-serious response by
the Democrats running the Clinton defense and foreign policy
establishment in essence created the impression of America as
perceived by bin Ladin: the weak horse.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the left-wing MoveOn.org — a major
backer these days of Obama — even opposed the idea of an American
invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban government. This was
too much for Senator Clinton — which, in sum, is doubtless the
main reason she will not be the nominee of the Democrats. She’s
what passes for a hawk in the Democrats’ circles these days, don’t
you know?
Now comes 2008. Right on cue, Senator Obama, following in the
steps of Wallace, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry,
steps up and says that he would “talk to America’s enemies,” from
Iran to North Korea. He insists that he would have voted against
removing Saddam Hussein from power had he been in the Senate at the
time. Yet he’s stunned that anybody would ever call him an
appeaser. Shocked that a spokesman from the eternally violent Hamas
would express the wish that Obama win the election. He would, Obama
insists, never meet with terrorists. Never.
Serve on the board of the Woods Foundation with a terrorist,
perhaps, or have one host a campaign fundraiser maybe, but beyond
that — certainly not. You don’t believe he’s that naive, do
you?
As a matter of fact, yes. In the middle of a global war with
horrific consequences, the ghosts of Henry Wallace and Neville
Chamberlain are now riding herd for the Democrats with the heir of
Jimmy Carter.
Make no mistake. There is a reason Barack Obama is going to be
the nominee of the party of the weak horse.
He is one.
Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder and CEO of
QubeTV, an online
conservative video site. A Reagan White House political director
and author, he writes from Pennsylvania.
