Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler 1938

With all the Internet buzz about Neville Chamberlain, you’d think someone had unearthed footage of a Neville Chamberlain meltdown. Far worse than that, the long deceased Neville Chamberlain, was not only photographed with Hitler, but the then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain conceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler via the Munich Agreement in 1938-39. Thus he became the poster child of appeasement and he created a sound bite, “peace for our time” before sound bites were called sound bites.

President Bush evoked this unpleasant history when he drew the parallels with the unnamed “some” ……

The president did not name Obama or any other Democrat, but White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party. Former President Jimmy Carter has called for talks with Hamas.

“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,” Bush said at Israel’s 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. “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.”

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish Americans. Those doubts were earlier stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2008 presidential election, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group.

Obama last week called the Hamas allegation a “smear” and lashed out Thursday at Bush’s speech in Israel.

Source: Bush suggests Obama wants ‘appeasement’ of terrorists

See also:

Defense of Bush’s appeasement remarks is more complicated if a person (A) contradicts own previous statements on “negotiating” with “terrorists” or (B) does not know who Neville Chamberlain is.

Let’s take (A) which concerns John McCain.

Shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections two years ago, John McCain told a British news program that the U.S. should recognize Hamas as a legitimate governing authority:

They’re the government and sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with them. … It’s a new reality in the Middle East and I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, then they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.

Today, barely two years after embracing an open attitude towards Hamas, John McCain says that he will be their “worst nightmare.” McCain’s reversal would have been stunning on its own, but the reason for his hypocrisy is truly appalling: McCain flip-flopped on Hamas to smear Barack Obama.

Source: John McCain Flip-Flopped on Hamas to Smear Barack Obama

Watch the John McCain Hamas flip flop:

Let’s take (B) the “clueless talk show host” of our headline.

Well, this might have been his finest hour. Chris Matthews I mean, confronting Kevin James in the presence of Mark Green on tonight’s Hardball. The topic: what it means to compare appeasement, meaning Nazis and Neville Chamberlain in 1938-39–that exhausted neo-con trope–to our current situation vis-à-vis Iran and etc. The exchange was pegged to Bush’s political exploitation of Israel’s 60th anniversary.

This moment was not sublime just because of what Chris said–though that was plenty good. It was sublime because of the spur of the moment directorial judgment he made as Kevin began to rant. He decided to give this moron a great sweep of precious air time, not just seconds–he gave him minutes. Unprecedented media roominess descended on this sound-bite fool as he tried to bluster his way out his self-constructed trap. Chris just kept repeating a simple question–what did Neville Chamberlain actually do that constituted appeasement back in 1938-39? He just kept repeating that question.

Source: A Sublime Moment For Cable TV–Chris Matthews interviewing Kevin James On Appeasement.

Must be seen. It is hilarious.

That’s the history lesson for today.

Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement, Bush, McCain, Obama, Clueless Talk Show Hosts