Appease or Talk?

By Nesreen | May 18th, 2008 | No Comments

Much has been made this week about Bush’s speech at the Israeli Knesset aimed indirectly at Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. In his speech, Bush criticized unknown others who choose to appease those he deemed terrorists by engaging in discussions with them. In a show of demagoguery, Bush likened the will of some in the U.S. to talk to the likes of Hamas/Hizbollah/Iran/Syria and other players to the decision to appease Hitler in the lead up to WWII.

Following Bush’s comments, the talk show pundits with their usual zeal tore up or propped up the comments, depending on their orientation. It was another week where the din obscured the sensible, the thoughtful, the relevant.

I want to cite this episode of Hardball, seen here on YouTube, as an egregious example of what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, much of the public discourse in our country inspires fear by using several catch phrases or key words, but does little to inform us.
We need to do better as a nation in steering our discourse into more factual-based, measured directions. It’s up to us to challenge the nonsense that’s out there.