real clear politics

Update: forget my post, read The Currency Lad instead.

I'm reading about the fall out from Bush's speech to the Knesset (PDF) in which he said:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with 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 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.

That senator was isolationist Sen. William Borah, a Republican from Idaho. 

And Bush was right.

Naturally, Obama who thinks the world revolves around him, thought it was about him.  I just saw a grab on PBS of him at a town hall meeting addressing this.  All this pre-emptive waffle before he just mentions Hamas, "a terrorist organisation", but without a clear unequivocal repudiation.  I wish I could find a transcript.  There was no mention of Obama in Bush's speech, but if the cap fits, why not make a song and dance about it, so news outlets can headline with  "Obama says Bush falsely accuses him of appeasement."

In a statement Obama released to the media,  Obama goes further by saying Bush's comments were:

"...exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and alienates us from the rest of the world."

Frankly, with the U.S. being such a key global player, Bush's comments give me cause to give thanks for the U.S.

The Obamanable Showman, however, keeps talking, oh, tough talk:

"It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel," Obama said in his statement. "Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what (Presidents) Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power—including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy—to pressure countries like Iran and Syria."

I'm sure some historians might want to analyse that. 

In any case, Obama's version of "tough, principled, and direct diplomacy" means meeting with anyone unconditionally, whereas the current U.S. policy is for diplomacy under certain pre-conditions - like ending attacks and recognizing Israel for Hamas - or diplomacy in order to find leverage, as is currently happening with low level meetings between Iranian and U.S. officials. 

This is why Hamas and other Islamist loonies love Obama.  Obama thinks you can reason with them, and that they can be friends. They operate under the principles of taqqiya and hudna.

If there is one thing we have learnt from Gulf II is the lesson we should have learnt by Gulf I: nothing less than unconditional surrender.

Obama is a useful idiot.