President President Bush Addresses Members of the Knesset on 15 May 2008 — Excerpt:
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.
Discussion costs little and might produce small but still valuable agreements, perhaps temporary cease-fires or limitations on the nature and size of terror strikes. If fruitless, nothing has been lost and we have tried — which in itself gains a real if intangible benefit in the “court” of world opinion — the realm of the vital moral dimension of 4GW. Bush uses a logical fallacy, creating a “false dilemma“: either negotiations produce victory (“persuade them they have been wrong”) or they are not useful.
This is a cheap debator’s trick, but not stupid. The following is stupid — an extreme illustration of the low quality of neocons’ (and their useful idiots’) reasoning and knowledge.
Interview with Kevin James on ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ (15 May 2008) — Kevin James is a radio talk show host for KRLA in Los Angeles; Mark Green is president of Air America radio. To see the video click here. Here is an excerpt from the transcript (the crosstalk has been edited out):
JAMES: We‘re talking about Israel because it‘s the 60th anniversary of their independence, and it‘s where President Bush happened to be today, talking about the Knesset when he launched this blurb against Obama. I‘m glad he did it! I wish the White House had been a little more forthcoming… and say, You better believe this is against Obama because his policies are dangerous for this country and they‘re dangerous for Israel, as well!
GREEN: What Bush has done is since they‘ve run out of arguments, they engage in analogies. … Now comes President Bush using guilt by analogy, that somehow, Obama is Chamberlain, and anybody who the Bush people don‘t like is Hitler. We‘ve seen this before. Ho Chi Minh was Hitler. Ahmadinejad is Hitler. Osama bin Laden is Hitler. And now Hussein was Hitler. Look, Hitler was Hitler. And I wish the Republicans would argue on the merits and not engage in McCarthyite guilt by association or analogy. They‘re doing it because their candidate is weak …
MATTHEWS: Kevin, I want… to do a little history check on you because the president‘s referring to history. He attacked those who would imitate Senator William Boar of Idaho, who was a Republican isolationist back in the late ‘30s, who supported whatever, some notion of getting along with Hitler better. Let me ask you, what did Chamberlain do wrong, Neville Chamberlain do wrong in 1939? What did he do wrong?
JAMES: Oh, come on. It all goes back to appeasement.
MATTHEWS: No, what did he do? Tell me what he did.
JAMES: It‘s the key term. It‘s the key term.
MATTHEWS: You have to answer this question. What did he do?
JAMES: It‘s the same thing. It puts it all — we‘re talking about appeasement.
MATTHEWS: Well, tell me what he did. What did Chamberlain do wrong?
JAMES: His actions enabled, energized, legitimated. It‘s exactly the same thing.
MATTHEWS: I‘m not going to continue with this interview unless you answer what that thing is. What did Chamberlain do in ‘39? Tell me, in ‘38. What did he do? What did he do?
JAMES: Well, ‘38, ‘39, Chris. What year do you want? It‘s the exact same thing that happened, Chris. He‘s talking about appeasement.
MATTHEWS: Just tell me what he did, Kevin. What did Chamberlain do you didn‘t like?
JAMES: What Chamberlain did — what Chamberlain did that I — what the president was talking about. You just said the president was talking about — you just said the president was talking about Barack. Look…
MATTHEWS: No, no. I want you to tell me, Mister. You‘re making a reference to the days before our involvement in World War II, when the war in Europe began. I want you to tell me now, as an expert, what did Chamberlain do wrong?
JAMES: Look, you‘re not going to box me in here, Chris. President Bush was making that. I‘m glad the president {interrupted}
MATTHEWS: You don‘t know, do you? You don‘t know what Neville Chamberlain did in Munich, do you?
JAMES: Of course. What Neville Chamberlain — yes, he was an appeaser, Chris. He was an appeaser.
MATTHEWS: What did he do?
JAMES: And it energized and it legitimatized.
MATTHEWS: Kevin, what did Neville Chamberlain do? You are B.S.ing me. You are talking about a critical point in American history, in European history, and you can‘t tell me what Neville Chamberlain did in Munich. What did he do in ‘39, ‘38?
JAMES: Chris, Chris, Chris, I wasn‘t the one that raised the Hitler comment. My point is—my point is, what President Bush has done is, he has taken this shot across the bow, all right?
MATTHEWS: You don‘t know what you‘re talking about, Kevin. Tell me what Chamberlain did wrong.
JAMES: Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser, Chris. Neville Chamberlain {interrupted}
MATTHEWS: What did he do?
JAMES: Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser, all right?
MATTHEWS: What did he do?
JAMES: Neville Chamberlain, his—but his policies, the things that Neville Chamberlain supported, all right energized, legitimized, energized, legitimized, and made it easier for Hitler to advance in the ways that he advanced.
MATTHEWS: I have been sitting here five minutes asking you to say what the president was referring to in 1938 at Munich.
JAMES: Chris, I don‘t know what the president was referring to when he talked about what was being said in 1930 — in 1939.
MATTHEWS: You don‘t know what you‘re talking about. Your problem, Kevin, is, you don‘t know what you‘re talking about. And the problem is, you don‘t understand there‘s a difference between talking to the enemy and appeasing. What Neville Chamberlain did wrong, most people would say, is not talking to Hitler, but giving him half of Czechoslovakia in ‘38. That‘s what he did wrong, not talking to somebody.
JAMES: Chris, but there‘s a difference.
MATTHEWS: Appeasement is giving away things to the enemy. not talking to the enemy.
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