Originally Posted By: whomod
Sen. Barack Obama went one step further today in his pushback against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and President Bush on appeasement, suggesting that both Republicans have a problem with presidents past who have engaged in direct diplomacy.

"If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy because that's what he did with [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev, or Ronald Reagan, 'cause that's what he did with [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon 'cause that's what they did with [Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung]," Obama said in Roseburg, Ore.


 Originally Posted By: the G-man
The Wall Street Journal:
  • If nothing else, we now know what it takes to make a Democrat go nuts. One word: "appeasement."

    Notwithstanding that President Bush named no names in his speech to Israel's Knesset on Thursday, Barack Obama instantly called it a "false political attack." On him, of course.

    something has hit a nerve.

    Forget the complaint that Mr. Bush used a Hitler analogy. It's the here and now that has the Democrats upset. The fuse that set them off is any suggestion inside the context of a live presidential campaign that the Democrats are soft on national security.

    If Barack Obama has an Achilles' heel, this is it. He first exposed it last July in a Democratic debate when he replied, "I would," to a question of whether he'd meet as President with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without precondition." Even Mrs. Clinton took a shot at that one, calling the Senator's comment "irresponsible and frankly naive."

    Speaker Pelosi's own April 2007 sojourn to Syria is remembered mainly for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert feeling obliged to correct Ms. Pelosi's announcement that Mr. Olmert had told her he was ready to start peace talks with Syria. Untrue.

    Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi announced in Damascus: "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." There must be a word for this somewhere. Just last month, former President Jimmy Carter met with leaders of Hamas to promote, among other things, "human rights."

    But Barack Obama is the party's presumptive standard-bearer for 2008. Thus, let's try to bring this dispute into sharper focus.

    Mr. Obama asserted again yesterday that he will not meet with terrorists. He is, however, willing to meet with Iran or Syria. Virtually no serious person disputes that Iran has shipped weaponry to terrorists in Iraq and that Syria has provided safe haven to these terrorists and let them cross from Syria into Iraq. In turn, these jihadists have killed U.S. soldiers. At a minimum, one might expect that ceasing this lethal activity would be a "precondition" before committing the office of the presidency to meet with either.

    Leaving no argument unturned, Democrats have reached back to Richard Nixon's trip to China and Ronald Reagan's negotiations with the Soviet Union as evidence that Republican Presidents "talk to the enemy." Put it this way: The day Iran brings forth a Chou Enlai and Syria a Mikhail Gorbachev, sure, give them a call.

    At bottom this dispute is about understanding the nature of the enemy in Iran, Syria and other sponsors and practitioners of Islamic terror. If the tempest over his indelicate words causes the Democratic presidential nominee to think twice about the political cost of trafficking with Tehran or Damascus, uttering "appeasement" will have been worth it.