So Who Was He Talking About?

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 only I could have talked to Hitler, all of 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. [President Bush speaking before the Israeli Knesset yesterday].

Senator Obama took offense at President Bush’s remarks yesterday linking those who would talk to terrorists and radicals to Nazi appeasers. The White House denied that Bush was alluding to Obama who is on record as being willing to talk to Iranian leaders. That leaves the mystery of who Bush had in mind. Maybe these quotations will help ferret out the culprits:

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with [the Iranians]. If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us. [Secretary of Defense Robert Gates two days ago]

They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. [John McCain responding to James Rubin two years ago who asked whether American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?]