Why Junior and McClone Won't Talk to Enemies

That Junior and McClone equate communication with 'appeasement' is odd, given that so many prominent Republicans were all for appeasing Hitler in the late 1930s -- praising him for his anti-communism and joining Nazi sympathizer groups like America First and the German-American Bund. Could personal, psychological motives be at work here?

After all, refusing to communicate simply hobbles your foreign policy. Every experienced diplomat knows that. We never stopped talking to the Soviet Union during the Cold War -- if we hadn't, probably none of us would be alive to have this discussion.

And in fact, 'not talking' to terrorists, 'bad guys', 'Axis of Evil' nations or whatever, really only means not publicly talking. Secret contacts are always being maintained, because they have to be. And sooner or later these private connections almost always lead eventually to public ones.

There's certainly no one around today any more evil than people we've been happy to talk to in the past. After all, Rummy and Daddy Bush were buddy-buddy with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s--even gave him arms to fight Iran. We even talked to Osama bin Laden, and built him a training camp to fight the Russians. We've talked to, trained, and given military support to, military dictators all over Latin America to finance their death squads and torturers. We've never been at all squeamish about our friends, why be squeamish about enemies? Especially considering the fact that today's enemy so often becomes tomorrow's friend, and vice versa.

In part, all this 'won't-even-speak-to-'em' verbiage is for voters of the yahoo persuasion, who will support any macho dummy who 'talks tough.' It's also a way to emphasize how evil some nation is, so if we want to bomb them later on we won't feel bad about all the civilians we slaughter.

Still, this doesn't seem to entirely explain why wannabe world leaders would assume such a silly posture. Which is why we might suspect that more personal motives must be at work.

For Junior, it's obviously face-saving. He's like the kid who's been deserted by his classmates and left alone in the playground, who shouts after them, "I'm not talking to you!" Because, let's face it, Junior is an international joke, and no one pays any attention to what he wants anyway. Turkey ignores him, Pakistan ignores him, Egypt ignores him, Saudi Arabia ignores him, and Israel can even make him hastily retract what he says. So his claim of refusing to talk to somebody gives him the feeling that he still matters, that he can have an impact.

For McClone, while the position is identical as always, the motive may be a little different. McClone not only has an anger management problem, he has a short-term memory problem, and he keeps contradicting himself--denying he said what he said, and then, when confronted with the fact, denying that he denied it. He can't remember the difference between Shiites and Sunnis, or that he was 'honored' to have the endorsement of prominent wacko John Hagee, or that our Founding Fathers were mostly Deists, not Christians, or that his campaign staff are all lobbyists. It's probably wiser for McClone not to talk to anyone about anything.

Comments

[kellygrrrl]

can't wait for the day I never have to hear either Chimpy or McLame ever talk again

[2liveNdie]

They don't know how to talk let alone talk to other foreign leaders.

Notes and teleprompters don't work well with face to face meetings.

[wbramh]

To be fair to Senator McCain, until trecently, nobody knew who the enemy was. You could have picked a name out of the Greater Baghdad White Pages.
Plus, the "A" word is already losing disfavor because of fussy 1939 history buffs like you insisting on accuracy. Spoil sports, all. Hence, Senator McCain has returned to the "S" word to describe Senator Obama's Iraq policy. Senator McCain deserves the opportunity to enlighten us as to whom Senator Obama has been surrendering to? Here's my open letter to Senator McCain requesting clarification.

Dear Senator McCain:
I believe in "knowing thy enemy," from Bin Laden to Saddam to his Sunni/ Baathist followers to Islamic Jihadists to Al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq to al-Sadr's Shia to Islamo-Facists to Iraqi Insurgents to Secular Mercenaries, etc. Thankfully, the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment cleared things up by declaring we were actually waging the War in Iraq against the "Lebanese Hezbollah and its indigenous Iraqi proxies urged on by indigenous Iranian proxies." Ergo, our true enemy in Iraq is Iran and we"re fighting them in Iraq so we don"t have to fight them over there - in Iran. Wheww! So here"s my question:

Do we surrender to Iran or wait for the next enemy?

I know you"re as confused as I am (saw those overseas press conferences) so please pass my question on to Senator Lieberman; he seems up on this stuff.
Thanks in advance,
A Concerned Citizen

[tedbear]

Bush and McCain have other personal reasons for not talking to foreign leaders. One reason could be greed, for what the country in question posesses that they want. For instance, the case of Iraq, I could think of several reasons Bush went in there. One was revenge for Sadam's threat to kill Bush Sr. and one for the oil, and one for the money private corporations would make rebuilding, and money the bids for military necessities would bring. All this money belonging to the American people would look awfully inviting to greedy Presidents, Greedy Vice Presidents, etc. etc. etc.! Lets not forget McCain seems somehow stuck on warmongering. Maybe his upbringing or maybe some sort of deep seated need to belong or be powerful. Who knows? McCain seems to exude a sort of patheticness, when he isn't reacting with anger and stuborness as he did the other day. Reacting to hecklers, he laughingly said "I will never surrender in Iraq. I will never surrender in Iraq.(he said it twice with a sort of insane smile.)" This is a dangerous man. A very dangerous man to be calling the shots of our future and the fate of our children!

[Kundera]

That's really witty and mature changing McCain's name to McClone. Can you teach a course in changing people's names and mocking them at the same time? It's something we just don't have enough of.

[plebeianswillrevolt]

It is a sad disgrace that we are forced to leave little george in office for almost another full year. He belittles our Nation with every further moment he spends occupying that once sacred space..... before the days of Bill Clinton and Dubya Bush that is.

Why has the raging hatred against Bush which was so evident only a short while ago turned into benign neglect? Your post has a hint of it still and I appreciate that. Where is the rest? We shoud hound and pound and denigrate that cowardly pathetic urchin until he resigns. Did you just read for example what Scott McClellan or Robert Scheer wrote about bush? Treasonous, traitorous,.... in the White House no less. the name bush, will be a blight on humanity forever, just like hitler.