WASHINGTON — Poor Neville Chamberlain. The long deceased
British prime minister — remembered through the decades for his
policy of appeasement and for the war with Hitler that it hastened
— now suffers yet another disgrace. 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.
Pronounced House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi: “beneath the dignity of
the office of the president and unworthy of our representation at
that observance in Israel.” The observance of which she spoke was
Israel’s 60th birthday, and no member of the Israeli parliament
shared her anger. In fact, many applauded the President. Pronounced
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “reckless and irresponsible.”
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took leave of her campaign, where
she probably has wrapped up the white supremacist vote, and
denounced the president’s choice of words as “offensive and
outrageous.”
Even the serene and august Senator Barack Obama stepped down
from his cloud of serenity to asseverate: “It is sad that President
Bush would use a speech at the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of
Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack.”
Betraying a hint of what may very well be megalomania, the likely
Democratic presidential candidate continued, “George Bush knows
that I have never supported engagement with
terrorists….” Yet the President had not
mentioned the senator or any other living American politician, not
even Jimmy Carter who most certainly did engage with terrorists and
as recently as April when he conferred with representatives from
Hamas to mull over of all things “human rights.”
For that matter, it was not more than a year ago that Squeaker
Pelosi visited with the Syrian leadership in Damascus, concluding
“we came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to
Damascus is a road to peace.” If the Syrians do not qualify as
terrorists they certainly give sanctuary and arms to terrorists,
some of whom are using those arms in Iraq. I guess we can
understand why she is sensitive when the President mentions
appeasement.
As for Senator Obama, he is still trying to wriggle out of an
answer he gave to a question asked him during a debate last summer.
Would he as president “without preconditions” meet with the
anti-American, anti-Semitic, and seemingly delusional president of
Iran, he was asked. “I would,” he answered in the sanctimonious
tone that always suggests incense is burning nearby. So maybe we
can understand why he and the Democratic leadership are so anxious
to transform yesteryear’s failed policy of appeasement into a hate
term. Incidentally, Senator Clinton’s immediate assessment of
Senator Obama’s pert answer was, “irresponsible and frankly naive.”
She has shown herself to be an able critic of the Democratic
frontrunner. Possibly she will eventually join the McCain
campaign.
One thing that all these Democrats have in common is a colossal
moral superiority. As we have seen before, they repeatedly presume
to set the terms of political debate. They rule over the
appropriateness of words and strategies, telling us what the
Republicans can and cannot say. Now they have ruled the word
“appeasement” to be “reckless,” “outrageous,” and bereft of
“dignity.” The term has been applied to opponents of a forceful
foreign policy for two generations during which forceful foreign
policy kept America secure. Alas, in this election the Democrats
have ruled the word appeasement out of bounds.
To Obama the term is redolent of that “divisiveness” that he
abhors. He has crossed the length and breadth of the land lecturing
against divisiveness. So how can we end this offensive
divisiveness? Well, obviously by agreeing with him and his wife.
His wife is also on the campaign trail, and when Republicans react
unfavorably to her complaints about America he tells them to “lay
off my wife.” What kind of a person tells us what we can and cannot
say and whom we must be in agreement with? To my mind it is a
bully, and now we are going to have months of watching Senator
Obama attempt to bully Senator John McCain. Over in Vietnam
somewhere there are retired jailers who could tell him that one
cannot bully McCain, even when you have him flat on his back with
broken bones.
