bring in the appeasers

Balloon Juice is consistently one of the best political blogs out there. With three or four contributors, it cranks out many more posts than I can read, and I want to share most of the posts that I do get to with friends and idiot acquaintances alike. A recent one, 'Barack Obama: Kinda Like a Nazi Appeaser,' summed up the recent lecture Bush made in Israel about Obama talking to black hats and others that want to take away our foot massages, saying they were appeasers akin to the ones who tried to negotiate with the Nazis (ten to one he couldn't come up with the name 'Chamberlain' in that context if his life depended on it, but whatever).

Since I read that post, I've learned two new things: one is that when Bush made the speech in Israel, the Israelis were conducting quiet negotiations with neighbor Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism. So he was basically equating the victims of the Nazis with, um, Nazis ("breathtakingly cynical" is how the NYT described it - if I were an internet researcher, I'd track the appearance of the word 'moron' before and after January 20, 2009 to see how much its use diminishes.) The other thing I learned is that Obama shouldn't be so quick to invoke Kennedy when making the point about the importance of using all elements of American power including tough, direct diplomacy; in Kennedy's one foray into discussions with Krushchev, he got his ass verbally handed to him, leaving Krushchev with the impression he was an immature lightweight that could be walked all over to the tune of putting nuclear missiles in Cuba. The danger in direct diplomacy, which I support, is overconfidence in your own abilities. I hope Obama's ready.

Back to Bush, the Balloon Juice article wrapped up nicely:

I think we should have a national celebration when this criminal leaves office. I mean a truly national celebration, with fireworks, street parties, city proclamations, etc that would be televised all over the world. I want President Bush’s last day in office to be the most humiliating experience of his life – one where the American people show him how absolutely jubilant they are that he is no longer the leader of this country. We could call it “National Thank Fucking God Day” or something like that.

Hallejulah.