Thank You Mr. President.

This has been a rough time for the Democrats. We’ve all been so pissed off at each other over this primary battle that has gone on forever. Now, that fight appears to be coming to an end, and while Hillary stills shows no signs of withdrawing, President Bush offered our party a wondrous chance for reconciliation this week; he reminded us just how big of a douche-nozzle he truly is.

Bush was in Israel, helping to commemorate that country’s 60th anniversary. In a speech to the Israeli Parliament, he said:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the 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 I could only have talked to Hitler, all 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.”

This appears to be a thinly veiled attack against Barack Obama, who has said during the campaign that he would meet with American enemies as well as allies, in the hopes of generating diplomacy. Apart from the fact that it is considered tremendously improper for an American politician to discuss our foreign policy disputes overseas, and that making a political speech to the Israeli parliament during their anniversary dishonors what should be a sacred occasion for them, what Bush said is just plain fucking stupid. Of course it has been trumpeted by his few remaining neo-con supporters (and there are an extremely precious few left), and by John McCain (more on that in a minute), but Bush’s statement is a reckless use of rhetoric designed to whip up a fury of support among the American ignorant, the last true vestige of support this administration has. Appeasement is a buzz word that conservatives have long used to highlight supposed weakness among liberal candidates of peace. But Bush actually appears to not know what the word means. To appease, something has to be given away to your enemy. Simply talking to your enemy is not appeasement; it’s diplomacy. Before World War Two, Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler by giving him control of Czechoslovakia. Obama has never insinuated he would give anything to HAMAS or Iran, other than his ear in the hopes that more innocent people don’t have to die unnecessarily.

Naturally the Democrats are pissed off. Nearly every major figure in Congress decried the President, some quite hilariously (Sen. Joe Biden loudly remarked, “that is bullshit!” after hearing the news), and so Bush seems to once again be doing what he does best: uniting everybody that realizes he is a complete fucktard. Even Hillary rushed to Obama’s defense. I fully expected her to remain silent, seeing as politically it is smarter to never come close to endorsing Obama while her campaign is still fighting him, but for once Hilldog actually did what was right, rather than what was politically expedient. It actually may be the first step toward reconciliation of the two candidates (which, of course, brings a soft little tear to my eye). Hillary, for herself, has said that her policy would be to never meet with America’s enemies without their first adhering to a series of pre-conditions that we set, namely recognizing the right of existence for Israel. Regarding Iran specifically, Hillary said she would use the cold war method of mutual assured destruction to prevent an attack on Israel: were Iran to nuke Israel, Hillary would nuke Iran, a position that, by comparison, makes John McCain look like Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.

Well, not totally. John McCain’s policy would be a continuation of Bush’s: don’t talk to anybody except those who kiss your ass, and bomb the hell out of everybody else. Such a god damn stupid position to take regarding foreign policy, but after 8 years of mindfuck neo-con propaganda, Republicans have people actually thinking this is how things get done. So diplomacy just doesn’t exist any more? Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan all met with our enemies, and during times even more dangerous than this. Kennedy met with Khrushchev while we were hours away from nuclear war, and by meeting with him, SAVED us from that fate. It doesn’t really matter anyway. McCain’s policy is merely political pandering. McCain rose to prominence by taking a maverick moderate position that put him at odds with the neo-cons. Several years ago he actually said that it was necessary to meet with HAMAS, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could never be resolved. This was around the time he called Jerry Falwell an agent of intolerance. But while he’s running for President, and needs the conservative vote, HAMAS is too evil to even acknowledge, and Falwell is a great American. So much for straight-talk McCain, the candidate of fierce integrity.

When he makes speeches on this issue, it sounds like he is talking to a kindergarten class. And truly his view, and the view of his supporters could not be more childish. They try to see the world in black and white; we are good and they are evil and we do not negotiate with evil. The world is so much more complex than that, especially the world of Middle East politics. To quote one of my favorite movies: “this shit’s Chess, it ain’t Checkers.” There are so many different tribes and groups among our enemies. They are not one single anti-American block. Luckily for us, they hate each other as much as they hate us. Some of them we cannot talk to. Al Queda, and those like them, are Wahhabi Sunnis. Their violence is driven by religious zeal, and they will never stop fighting until the whole world is Wahhabi Sunni, or eveyone is dead. The only way to fight them is to fight them. Iran, however, is a Persian, Shia state. They are much more intellectually advanced. Shia violence is driven more by their sense of political oppression, than by any religious zeal. They are soldiers, not zealots, and like any army with a political goal, a political solution can be used to pacify them. Also, nearly half of the population of Iran is under the age of 30, and they are surprisingly pro-American; seeing America as better than their own oppressive government. We can use that. Bush will never understand this. If we just go in and bomb the hell out of them, that support is going to dry up real quick. HAMAS and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations, but each now holds powerful positions in their respective elected governments as well. We won’t get anywhere in the Middle East peace process by simply pretending that they don’t exist. This is what smart politics is about. This is what makes Presidents great; the ability to negotiate, to find the peaceful solution.

So while Bush and his supporters continue to reveal how little they know, or care to know about the world they are trampling over, those of us who value reason and diplomacy are beginning to remember why we were so excited about this election in the first place. Let’s stop fighting each other and start fighting them. Thank you President Bush for this gift. God forbid we forget just exactly why we all hate you so very very much.

More to come. Thanks for caring.