The Politics Of Appeasement

President Bush gave a speech today at the Israeli Knesset today that rang some interesting bells here at home.

Aside from some rather well phrased tributes to Israel and to American-Israeli friendship ( which I hope he remembers as he contemplates pressing the Israelis for ridiculous concessions to their genocidal enemies 'for peace') President Bush had this to say:

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

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. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all 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.

It was the last two paragraphs that made Senator Barack Hussein Obama, many of his fellow Democrats and their allies in the dinosaur media absolutely livid.

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in a statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Ummmm...that would be the 'stalwart ally 'Barack Obama forgot to mention while filibustering in one of the Dem debates, until he was prompted by moderator Brian Williams, wouldn't it? The same ally his spiritual mentor referred to as 'a dirty word'?

Obama's fellow Donkeys weren't too far behind. Here's my favorite out of the ravening pack, by our Speaker of the House Nancy 'we've got our own foreign policy' Pelosi:"We have a protocol, sort of a custom, informally around here that we don't criticize the president when he is on foreign soil. One would think that that would apply to the president that he would not criticize Americans when he is on foreign soil."

Which of course is why she went to Syria with a delegation of her fellow Democrats tonegotiate with Basher Assad after President Bush specifically asked her not to! And I have a feeling that if I bothered to do the research, I could find plenty of instances where the President has gotten slammed while he was overseas. For instance...anyone remember the hateful rhetoric from some of these folks when the President made a surprise visit to Iraq to see the troops and landed on that aircraft carrier? I do.

But all partisan fencing aside,I would note two things.

First, President Bush's comments in his speech were spot on, and the pained reaction from Obama and friends shows, if nothing else,that it hit the mark accurately. For them to bray about 'false attacks' really only underlined Bush's point, although he, as usual, lacked the fortitude to own his remarks and had his spokesmouth Dana Perino deny that he meant anyone in particular.

Now, if I wanted to rip President Bush for what he had to say, I might argue that he was perhaps the wrong person to deliver that message.

He is, after all,the president who has allowed the Saudis to expand their export of wahabist jihad into America and who sent a US emissary to the racist and anti-Semitic Organization of the Islamic Conference "to listen and to learn from them" .He's spent millions on Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, who not only has his own terrorist al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade on the payroll but has also given a fair amount of money to Hamas.And for all his welcome remarks about Iran, I'm afraid I have to whisper off to the side that he hasn't done a single thing to solve that particular problem since dubbing them part of the Axis of Evil back in - what, 2002 or so?

But of course,you won't hear anything remotely like that from Obama or the other Democrats,who will instead scream like outraged peahens about how Bush slandered them.

Which also proves, by the way,that the president was entirely correct in his remarks,even though he lacked the guts to say so.