...yesterday, apparently, in response to President Bush's speech warning against appeasement.
Because today he's still going on and on about it, calling it "divisive", etc.
Hmmm. Well, up to now I've been an advocate of laying off the Jeremiah Wright talk.
But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it would be good to remind Senator Obama of just how long it took him to firmly renounce Pastor Wright's hysterical lies concerning the U.S. government and AIDS (for example), and how "divisive" Wright's accusations were.
But we should also examine more closely what else Senator Obama said today.
First, it remains interesting that President Bush never mentioned Obama's name in his speech. Yet the Senator has responded so loudly. Is he feeling a little vulnerable?
Then there's this, from the article I linked to above:
"Obama said McCain had a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."
Naive? What's naive is thinking that sitting down with someone like Ahmadinejad--someone who routinely calls for the destruction of Israel and makes anti-semitic statements, remember--is going to do anything else but legitimize him.
And then there's this, again from the article above:
"That has been the history of U.S. diplomacy until very recently," said Obama, who said he was comfortable engaging McCain in a foreign policy debate. "I find it puzzling that we view this as in any way controversial. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s ... When Kennedy met with Kruschev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."
And, Senator Obama, when Ronald Reagan held the presidential office in the 1980s, for nearly FIVE YEARS he engaged in no direct negotiations with the Soviet Union or with their leaders. Reagan never met with Leonid Brezhnev. He never met with Yuri Andropov. And Democrats back then roared with disapproval and claimed Reagan's refusal to negotiate with them would lead to nuclear war!
They were wrong. Reagan's tough stance eventually led to Gorbachev, and to real negotiations--and to Soviet concessions. Ultimately it helped lead to the end of the cold war. Not talking, showing resolve, showing toughness, can be necessary. And it works. Fundamental: don't, conservatives, let Obama and the Democrats get away with this incorrect narrative they're trying to set up.
