Oregon, Kentucky, Ollie, and Appeasement

Not that it really matters anymore, but there are more primaries tomorrow. So there are more predictions. Obama will win Oregon by 12 points. Clinton will win Kentucky by 30 points. Clinton will net 9 delegates for the night (67-58). It's possible Obama could win the nomination without a single additional super delegate after tomorrow. But probably not. Hillary looks strong in Puerto Rico. But, barring a radical rule change, she's done for. And it looks like even the rule changes she wants wouldn't be enough for her. Her only hope is to get out of debt before she drops out.

I didn't want to write about Bush's appeasement comments in Israel. I basically came up with the same argument as Chris Mathews: Chamberlain wasn't wrong to talk to Hitler. He was wrong to give up the Sudetenland. That was the appeasement. Simply talking does not ensure bad results. I wasn't even going to say this, because it's so obvious. But then I saw Ollie North saying this:

"As you know, I’m the history guy at Fox News Channel, right? I’ve done this WWII series – 52 of our episodes about WWII. Had it not been for Chamberlain going to sit down with Adolf Hitler and try to cut a deal in Munich, WWII might never have happened, but it emboldened the dictator. That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, ‘You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators’ - dead on the mark."

Umm, Ollie, you not only talked to Iran, but you gave them weapons! That's not just diplomacy, and it's not just appeasement, it's collaboration. I was going to write of pots and kettles, but this is different. This is the pot calling the tea cup black. Of course, Bush's grandfather helped arm and finance Hitler, so I guess Bush shouldn't be talking about appeasement, either.

As for Ollie being the "history guy at Fox," well, that just about explains everything at Fox News, doesn't it?

As for McCain, I guess he wouldn't have talked to Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He'd either have left the missiles in Cuba or started a nuclear holocaust. My guess is that McCain would have followed Barry Goldwater's advice and launched an attack. And most of us wouldn't have ever been born because our parents would have been killed. And he thinks Obama is "reckless"? Once again, the pot calling the tea cup black. When you refuse to negotiate, you leave only two options: ignore the problem or go to war. If you ignore the problem, it only grows and leads you to the same two choices. Eventually, war will become the only option. But McCain's only solution to any problem is war. So it's not surprising he'd advocate a policy that can only lead us there.

Update: it seems those dirty hippie appeasers in Ehud Olmert's government are negotiating with Syria. There have been rumors to this effect for months, but now Syria and Israel are acknowledging the negotiations. The consensus seems to be that real progress is being made or they wouldn't be talking about it. Let's all hope that's true. Some analysts are even hinting that Israel might give up the Golan Heights. I never would have dreamed that possible, although demographic issues have forced considerable reassessment within Israel. Turkey deserves a lot of credit for setting up the negotiations. And Syria and Israel deserve even more credit for following through.

Update II: Speaking of Hitler, Pastor John Hagee thinks Hitler was just fulfilling God's plan for the Jews. Hagee has said quite a lot of really crazy things, but that's about as crazy as it gets. I hope so, at least. But who knows what further media scrutiny will bring?