IMPEACHMENT? NO!

A great diplomat once said, "Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer." That diplomat was not George W. Bush. George W. would have said, "Keep your friends close and keep your enemies as far away as possible."

This is what he was inferring, while addressing Israeli's Knesset (Parliament) when honoring that nation's 60th birthday.

Here's what he said:

President Bush suggested that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II. "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish decision before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1938, an American Senator (William Borah, Republican, from Idaho)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."

What Bush did in Israel goes well beyond the accepted confines of American political debate. Whether we like it or not President Bush is the leader of all of us, (no longer the leader of the free world, just the leader of us), and to use a diplomatic setting on foreign soil to score a cheap political point at home is way beneath his office, his country, and the people he purports to serve.

Recently Chris Matthews hosting MSNBC's "Hardball" was quizzing Kevin James, a right wing radio host, about Bush's Israel Speech. James adamantly replied that Senator Obama wanted to do the same thing that Neville Chamberlain did with the Nazi's in 1938. Appeasement. Chris Matthews then asked James, what exactly did Chamberlain do?

James: Appeasement.
Matthews: No, what did Chamberlain do?
James: Appeasement.
Matthews: Again, what did Chamberlain do?
Same answer: Appeasement.

Chris Matthews asked the same question 12 times over the next five minutes. Kevin James, speaking for the republicans, had no idea what Neville Chamberlain did in 1938, he only knew his name. As Matthews then commented, "Kevin, you are a blank slate." There is a difference between appeasement and diplomacy.

As a follow up to Bush's speech, we again heard the cry of "Impeachment." There's no chance. "Impeachment" must start in the House of Representatives, followed by a fact finding hearing. The House must then vote a majority to impeach. This is called the adoption of the Articles of Impeachment. Then the case is sent to the Senate. The Senate is transformed into a Quasi-Judicial body (a 100 member jury) to hear the case, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding.

TO CONVICT A TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY OF THE SENATE IS NEEDED.

There is no way the Senate would ever get a two-thirds majority. Just look at how the Republican Senators line up to follow their leader (Bush) voting for anything he wants and against everything he doesn't want. Eight months, eight more months, and Bush will be back cutting weeds on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. We will just have to wait.

For the record: Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, three times in 1938 went to Germany in efforts to prevent the outbreak of a general European war over Hitler's demand that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to Germany. By the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, he and Premier Edouard Daladier of France granted almost all of Hitler's demands and left Czechoslovakia defenseless. Chamberlain returned to England speaking of, "peace with honour." When Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, Chamberlain repudiated appeasement, and then immediately guaranteed armed support for Poland, Romania, and Greece. The next month, peacetime military conscription was instituted for the first time in British history.

Webster's Dictionary Definitions (In case you were wondering):
Appeasement = To Pacify. To buy off an aggressor.
Diplomacy = Skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility.