I hope Bush keeps tossing us softballs like this BS from the Knesset

[olkaz]

Holy shnikes, have you seen Democrats respond this strongly to anything over the last two years?

Bush talks, BOOM, five strong democratic voices attack immediately.

Keep pitchin', Dubya, we got bats to spare.

[caledesi]

1. I agree! This is GREAT! NT

[rockymountaindem]

2. I feel that the historical narrative is the greatest victim here

That's kinda sarcastic but I feel that history is really being misrepresented every time one of these RWers brings up appeasement. As I've learned from studying appeasement in college and now as part of my Ph.D program, we Americans have a very misconstrued view of the entire situation. Not that this is really the time for our leaders to launch into a history lecture, but it sill pisses me off.

Also, if Bush wants to talk about American voices of appeasement, such as the Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1938, that's fine. Their foremost proponents were Republicans, that's right, Republicans, such as Sen. Gerald Nye (disgusting anti-Semite) and his buddies, who continually accused Roosevelt of being a war monger for talking about the dangers of fascism. That's his own party's legacy he's spitting on there. Fine by me...

[olkaz]

3. Wow, that deserves it's own thread.

Don't waste that, post that on it's own.

Very interesting stuff.

[rockymountaindem]

6. I don't know

I'd have to write a whole paper on it and I don't know if now is the time or the place. It's not the time 'cause it's summer break and it's not the place because I'm on vacation :D

But seriously, if you scratch the surface you'll find that below the typical narrative that appeasement stemmed from cowardice, there lies a very complex web of calculations and miscalculations which led to the debacles of October 1938, September 1939 and June 1940. In our quest to reduce things to simplified, easily-understood pieces, a lot has gotten left out. Of course, when I learned about that in high school, keeping it simple was appropriate because there's limited time and a lot to cover. Unfortunately, since most people in this country don't continue their study of history past secondary school, that overly-simplified version of what "appeasement" means and meant has become conventional wisdom. I'd say that if we're trying to keep things simple, we should abandon the "cowardice" line and instead adopt stubbornness and, sadly enough, bad intelligence and incorrect concepts about politics and military capabilities as the underlying factors in appeasement.

If this keeps up though, I might have to write that paper :)

[LakeSamish706]

4. And the other beauty is to have McCain agree totally with him. n/t

[AspenRose]

5. It's nice to see

:-)