In remarks in South Dakota just now, Barack Obama hit back hard at George Bush's and John McCain's foreign policy attacks yesterday, stating flatly that a debate with the two Republicans over foreign policy is a debate that "I will win."
"George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for," Obama said.
The fight is one that the Obama campaign is eager to have, because it accomplishes two things. First, it forces McCain to stand by Bush, making it easier to tie them together. And second, it puts Obama, sans Hillary, on the same stage as the current Republican president and his would-be successor, making the Dem primary seem a bit like a distant memory.
"If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time," Obama said. "That is a debate that I will win."
He proceeded to rattle off all the things Bush and McCain have to "answer for." The unnecessary Iraq War. The phantom WMDs. The strengthening of Iran. The fact that "Hamas now controls Gaza." And the fact that Osama Bin Laden is "sending out video tapes with impunity."
Obama also slammed the notion that he'd ever supported any sort of negotiations with terrorists. "They're trying to fool you, trying to scare you, and they're not telling you the truth because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits," he said.
At times, Obama hit what I think is the right tone -- ridicule and bemusement, rather than outrage. At one point, for instance, he noted that McCain has now promised an end to the war in 2013, after repeatedly suggesting a much longer open-ended commitment might be necessary.
"I think he noticed that it wasn't polling well," Obama joked.
The use of the word "appeasement", (or the ridiculous form "appeasers") is a dumbing down or an outright insult to both the English language and European history. The word means to calm down or satisfy someone or some situation in need of soothing, and it entered the language of international diplomacy with Neville Chamberlin and Adolph Hitler. Chamberlin's error wasn't talking to Hitler, it was giving away a part of Czeckoslovakia, hoping that it would satisfy Hitler. Talking with your enemy and coming to verifiable agreements is how you make peace. That's not appeasement. It is, however a great example of how the ever more desperate right-wing fear spinners abuse facts and de-educate the American public.