Nice strawman you beat up. Nobody on the left says we should "avoid irritating" al-Qaida, Mr. graduate of the Ann Coulter school of rhetoric. Clarke said we shouldn't have deliberately inflamed the arab world by invading a country that had nothing to do with terrorism, period. Got any more stupid, baseless assertions?

Seriously, one day the blinders are going to fall off your eyes and you'll see that in fact, your fellow Americans who are questioning Bush aren't doing so out of any kind of desire to appease terrorism or because we've fallen victim to seductive and insidious "prevailing memes." It's because Bush's policies haven't worked. I guess the only question left is whether people like you, Lileks, Sullivan, and Instapundit are going to present honest arguments about the risks, dangers, and potential gains from Bush's strategy, or just fall back on accusations of cozying up to al-Qaida and undermining civilization?

Yeah, I have another stupid, baseless assertion. I think commenters from the United States Chamber of Commerce (12.4.20.217) ought to at least have the decency to put their names on comments.

And since you gratuitously lump me with Ann Coulter, I think I'll call you one of Mahathir Mohamad's stooges!

Nyah nyah!

There you go, Eric. You're the one equating critics with appeasers, so the comparision with Ann Coulter was inevitable.

Thanks for your comment, Tom. I see your point, although I did not equate all critics with appeasers; I said "if the idea is to realign U.S. foreign policy so as to avoid irritating al Qaida," it is fair to ask a) whether that's appeasement, and b) whether it would work.

(I suspect Ann Coulter would have used stronger language....)

You're right, you did say that. And my response is that it is dishonest and miserable to claim that anyone -- anyone -- would have us "realign U.S. foreign policy so as to avoid irritating al Qaida." There is no official, elected or appointed, who holds that position and you know it. I repeat, it's a strawman you set up deliberately to link Clarke and Iraq war critics with "appeasement." So despite your hemming and hawing about how you "did not equate all critics with appeasers," I think it's quite clear why you brought up the concept, Ann Coulter Jr.

No one -- rightly -- suggested that Bush was an appeaser when he pulled our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Why? Because though it may have coincided with Bin Laden's objectives, it was clear that Bush was doing it out of our own self interest. Yet when Americans suggest that Bush's Iraq policy may have made things less safe for us by giving al-Qaida a fertile recruitment ground and a new front in the war, we're called appeasers and Saddam apologists by the likes of you and Glen Reynolds. And I'm fed up with it.

Tom, you're using the word "we" pretty loosely. I was talking about Richard Clarke, and I don't recall calling anyone a "Saddam apologist" (whether you're "fed up" or not!)

If Clarke "harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden" I think it's hardly dishonest (or miserable) to ask whether that's a call to "realign U.S. foreign policy so as to avoid irritating al Qaida."

But I am glad to hear that there is no official, elected or appointed, who holds that position.

What a relief!

Should I call off my "mom"?

"If Clarke "harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden" I think it's hardly dishonest (or miserable) to ask whether that's a call to "realign U.S. foreign policy so as to avoid irritating al Qaida."

Eric:

what you wrote was indeed both dishonest and miserable, and you should take it back.

I agree that Clarke called for a realignment of U.S. foreign policy. But you went a step further, questioning whether it was done "to avoid irritating al Qaida." What I'm saying is that in the absence of any evidence, any non-Coulter-esque person would assume Clarke's position as being motivated by a sincere desire to improve our counter-terrorism policy (as you assumed with Bush pulling troops out of Saudi) and address it on that basis. You, on the other hand, characterize it in the most slanderous, sinister, and cowardly light, based on no evidence or reason at all except for your apparent wish for a strawman to abuse. That is Coulter-level dishonesty, period.

But you didn't just stop there, Eric, as your quote would imply. You left off the best part. After you questioned whether your invented Clarke was motivated by such cowardly, America-hating desires, you then compounded your error with slander by using your baseless characterization as a springboard to make your tenous link to appeasement and Clarke's theoretical support for it. You even went so far as to label John Kerry "clearly the guy to make a case for" such. That's not logic, that's a smear job. You associated both Clarke and Kerry with appeasement and cowardice based on nothing more than your imagination. It's miserable and vile, and any honorable person would withdraw the statement. Will you?

But let's look at your strawman Clarke more closely, so we can expose your cognitive dissonance. You suspect that Clarke on the one hand might be motivated by a cowardly desire "to avoid irritating al-Qaida." How do you square that with the fact that he also wanted us to invade Afghanistan? Wouldn't that also irritate al-Qaida? Do you actually believe Clarke thinks he can curry favor with Bin Laden while at the same time trying to kill him? Really? How does appeasement work while we're bombing the people we're trying to appease, exactly? It doesn't, because that person doesn't exist outside of the minds of the war-hawks.

The saddest part is this, Eric. As you wrote: "Objective analysis of valid criticisms has become almost impossible." And you, Glen Reynolds, and others, by willfully condoning and participating in these smear jobs and appeaser witch hunts, are actively a part of that problem.

To be fair, as far as I know, you never called war critics Saddam apologists. Lileks, Little Green Footballs, and Reynolds are better for that. And I visit Andrew Sullivan for all my fifth column needs.

There are a lot of words put in my mouth and a lot of name calling. (Dishonest, miserable, vile, dishonorable, etc.)

Complaining of "smear jobs" strikes me as a little disingenous under the circumstances.

If you don't appease me by retracting what you said, do I get to call you dishonorable?

Hey, clearly Kerry's the best guy to make the case for appeasement, what do I know?

Call me what you like, just don't imply that Clarke or Kerry are appeasers if you have no evidence or reasoning to back it up. And definitely don't do it if you're simultaneously trying to complain about the degradation of political discourse.

It's my blog and I'll imply if I want to!

But why should I imply anything? Kerry himself stated that he wants a return to Clinton policies: "he'll treat terrorist acts against the U.S. as a law enforcement problem rather than as acts of war - the approach favored by President Clinton throughout the 1990s as Osama bin Laden repeatedly struck U.S. targets with impunity."

Simply put, I disagree with that strategy. So what's to imply?

Congratulations, Eric, you have hit the trifecta!

1) Failure to address my arguments? Check.
2) Introducing new evidence in an attempt to disguise that failure? Check.
3) Unable to be bothered to do the basic research, instead using NewsMax (!) as a source for your unsubstantiated, paranoid, Kerry=appeasement assertions? Check.

You have truly earned the right to be called Ann Coulter Jr.! (Or for the classically-minded, Cleon Jr. Wait, I take it back. Even he wouldn't have read NewsMax, much less relied on it for evidence.) Way to elevate the discourse today through the classical values of slander and dishonesty! Me, I'm going to actually read the speech and decide for myself. Adios!

Tom, Thanks for coming back! I have no obligation to respond to you at all, but even if I did, insults aren't worth taking seriously as arguments. Scorn, abuse, ridicule, putting words in my mouth, plus repeated gratuitous attacks on other bloggers who are not here to defend themselves -- these things speak for themselves.

Characterizing someone as "Coulter-esque" is ad hominem argument, and telling me what I assume about Bush and the Saudis (when I said nothing about that) is not worth a serious answer.

If you feel that asking whether appeasement has worked before and whether it will work again is "slanderous, sinister, and cowardly," I don't consider that to be logical argument.

Wouldn't it be more productive to start your own blog? A lot of people enjoy theatrics. (Check.)

I enjoyed your attack on Newsmax but it might be better to refute the article than attack the source. You're not preaching to any choir here.

Would you prefer WorldNetDaily?

Check!

Tom, you have criticized my research, but you forget that I don't work for you. But even so, I took the time to find a more thorough discussion than the Newsmax article.

-- JUST FOR YOU --
http://www.rightwingnews.com/category.php?ent=1845

Now be nice and don't say I never did anything for you!

I've enjoyed this whole thing, Eric, really I have. But you must understand my frustration. And if I've gotten too far afield of your original post with my "scorn and abuse," and by bringing the innocent Lileks and Instapundit into it, it's because your responses have been so light on actual content that I haven't had much to work with.

You assert (at first you tiptoed, then stated openly) that your dislike of Kerry's (and Clarke's) positions as being ineffectual or indecisive on terror has led you to conclude that he is an appeaser. I feel that while you are incorrect in your assesment of the effectiveness of Kerry's positions, it is a subject on which reasonable people can disagree. "Appeaser," though, has a very specific and inflammatory meaning: that one is trying to buy off one's enemy. And the subtext, of course, is that one is a feckless coward, perhaps even a traitor, let alone the Nazi connotations.

And so I repeat, highlight, underscore, underline, my following and as-yet totally ignored point: that never have you produced one shred of evidence or reasoning to support that appeasement, the desire to buy off our enemies, is Kerry's (or Clarke's, or anyone's, for that matter) motivation. This is simply your *imagined* motivation. The fact that you're so quick to first suspect, then definitively assign such an inflammatory motivation in the total absence of evidence is what makes you so... how shall I say it... dishonorable, dishonest, and anti-democratic. In my opinion, this impulse that you're giving into is one of the most disgusting forces in American politics today: the attempt to portray reasonable critics of Bush as cowards. This is an impulse that rightly deserves our scorn and abuse. At it's root, it's the same impulse that convinces some dumb anti-war activists to call Bush a Nazi. The fact that you're now trying to hide behind the defense of "just asking whether appeasement works" is really sad and unconvincing. It's like a leftist saying "I'm just questioning whether Bush thinks Nazism works, I'm not calling him a Nazi." And then you go and claim to want to elevate the discourse. Well, you've been pissing in the pool, so you have no right to complain about the taste.

We both know you think Kerry's an appeaser (what's to imply?), and you have no basis in logic or evidence to even introduce the concept except as a smear. That's wrong. So I called you on it, and you've never even provided a response. Will you ever?

"Appeaser," though, has a very specific and inflammatory meaning: that one is trying to buy off one's enemy.

Actually, appeasement sometimes works, and is not always dishonorable.

The following definition comes from

http://www.yourencyclopedia.net/Appeasement

"Appeasement is the strategic maneuver, based on either pragmatism, fear of war, or moral conviction, that leads to the adopting a non-aggressive or non-retaliative stance towards aggressors.

Appeasement is probably a learned behaviour or strategy, often shaped by negative experience when aggression was used in the past."

I don't think appeasement has worked in the past, and I do NOT know whether Kerry wants to pursue such a policy. Frankly, it's hard to know what he wants to do. Thus I raised the question. You dislike my raising the question, and you have hurled innumerable insults at me for raising it.

While I dislike Kerry in general and suspect that he would favor appeasement, a lot could happen to change his mind -- or mine, for that matter.

If you dislike me or my blog, fine!

I'll continue to raise whatever questions I want, and your tone not only fails to persuade me, but I think it departs from civility.

("inflammatory motivation, dishonorable, dishonest, and anti-democratic, one of the most disgusting forces in American politics today....")

Come on! It's simply name-calling, and I don't think it elevates discourse at all.

I would agree to disagree, but I doubt it's possible.

By the way, if you speculated that Bush is a Nazi, I would disagree with you as politely as I could -- even though I don't think wondering whether Kerry is an appeaser rises to quite the same level. Obviously, you disagree.

Wow, well, so your whole case rests on your claim that you called John Kerry an appeaser, but in a clinical, non-judgmental way, all in the spirit of free-minded inquiry. I guess there are some people out there for whom "appeaser" is an objective, value-neutral descriptor, for whom the term fails to conjure up any negative connotations of cowardice or folly. I just don't believe that you meant it that way, or that you or your readers are such people. I think you meant it as a slur. Casually slurring Kerry and Democrats as appeasers is a "prevailing meme," too, in case you were wondering.

But at least we agree that you have no evidence for it. And anyway, as I said before, your conceit of Kerry trying to appease Al-Qaida while simultaneously trying to bomb and kill them simply makes no sense, something you left unchallenged. In fact, it makes so little sense, that the simplest and best explanation for why you brought up the concept remains that you were tossing off a casual drive-by tarring. I'm not trying to deny you the right to ask whatever questions you want, Eric. I just think you went over the line with your appeaser rhetoric, and deserve to recieve comments that "depart from civility" for it.

Tom, this is getting really tired, but once again, I see nothing dishonest in speculating that Kerry might favor a policy of appeasement.

Others have made a case for the proposition that Kerry does in fact favor appeasement. I don't have to do that, and I really don't have to cite a single source for my own speculations.

But since you keep bringing it up, it is unreasonable to claim that there's nothing more to the Kerry-as-appeaser meme than my unsupported speculation.

Here are a few:

-- Kenneth R. Timmerman.

-- Michael Barone

-- Cox & Forkum

(I did not cite my "mom" because I frown on nepotism.)

Feel free to slam them all as vile, miserable, dishonest or disgusting. And I suppose you can call me dishonest for not citing them before. (Your complaint that I was "introducing new evidence" was a real gem, by the way -- as if I'm on trial by you at my own blog, and have no right to say anything once your "deadline" has passed.)

In any case, whether Kerry favors appeasement does not depend solely on MY speculations -- whether supported or not. I'm just blogging, and I consider the issue an open topic.

Would you be happier if I just came out and called Kerry an appeaser? The reason I didn't do that is I am not entirely convinced he still thinks as he did in the 1970s. I will reserve judgment, and I'll speculate as much as I want.