Yes, by George W. Bush's definition, Reagan, as well as Nixon, were appeasers. But George W. Bush does not understand the term. As usual, he gets it wrong.

Bush has severe problems with the English language. His constant misuse of language and convoluted logic are responsible for the misunderstandings that are characteristic of his administration.

It is also questionable regarding the people who write the speeches that the president delivers since the writer is more interested in addressing talking points with hot-button words to frame the discourse than building a cogent argument.

Of course, Bush when speaking without the services of prior written material, is best known for both a limited vocabulary and lack of a logical flow in his words. This is not because of the lack of proper education. He had, perhaps, the finest education that money and family status could buy. The issue is that he had definite problems learning his lessons and got through school by some other means than merit.

Now, his use of the term "appeaser" has become the subject of late night comedy television. It is certain the great communicator would be the first to correct him in his choice of terminology.

There is no good reason to post after, Gus, has spoken, he pretty much says it all!

You have to remember he was a cheerleader in College not a wiz kid that used his brain

The Soviets were not terrorists.

To Gus: You are quite the fluent communicator. Which doesn't mean that you have an exceptional IQ. Malapropism, which Bush sometimes displays can be the sign of a mind that is swifter than it's verbiage and can indicate a more global draw of consciousness. Famous scientists have stood at the apex of knowledge, seen reality from a higher perch and often suffered malapropism. I watched Bush's interview with Yahoo, his supposed (according to you) "convoluted logic" was not a problem for me.

Neocons are now trying to hijack the word "terrorist" for political gain.
To them it means Islamists.
Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist.
How about THIS Neocons?
Reagan and Nixon both sat down with the "bad guys."

@ John-
Yeah, warheads parked off our coast couldn't possibly be construed as terrorism. Give me a break.

To the contrary, Regan was not an appeaser. When he spoke to the Soviets, he had fixed positions he was unwilling to negotiate. He was known to walk out on summits, to which it was feared he would "lead us into world war III." President Regan was very open about his disdain for Communism and the Soviet Union. His famous line, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" was not one of appeasement, it was one of certainity.

However, some would have us think we can sit down with terrorist and the nations that support them, and negotiate. Until they are willing to allow us to live freely, willing to allow Isreal to exist in peace and without fear, there is no need to deal with them.

The letter writer just doesn't have the background to understand what Bush was saying. Obviously Gus and LL don't either.

Bush is actually too smart for you in this arena. You might want to stay on the sidelines.

Boy did Barry ever explode on this one. I think Bush touched a nerve, and correctly so based on BHO's own comments.

The biggest fallacy of liberals is that they think their intelligence is far superior to anyone else's and using that intelligence they can talk their way out of anything.

To show this art form, I'd invite any of them to head to Iraq, leave the green zone without any military, be captured and then show us how they can reason with their captures.

Any of you liberals up for the challenge? Didn't think so....

John: tell that to the Afgahnistanis in 1979....and all the other nations they terrorized.

In their rabid loathing of Bush, the collectivists even invoke REAGAN!

Of course, they are still forced to twist and distort (the only way to "prove" their point), but still, it's funny to watch.

Bush? Ha Ha Ha.
Bush wants his sheep to worry about Hitler now. What "Bush is too smart for you in this arena" Bush apologists will say to make the last eight years of complete idiotic decision making seem like utopia.
But he goes to church and packs a Bible, so we should vote for somebody just like him. (and they will)
God help us.

So when are you joining up Charles?
There must be SOMETHING you can do in Iraq?
Up for the challenge?

The surge is working. How can it be unsafe to leave this so-called Green Zone. You mean the same Green Zone that is subject to mortar fire, right?

Yes, Reagan and Nixon sat down with our enemies. However, they did not try to appease them. Nixon, during the Vietnam war, initiated Operation Linebacker, wherein the total might of US air power was used to bomb the targets that LBJ and McNamara had deemed, off-limits. The NV came to the negotiating table, briefly. Nixon initiated Linebacker II, to let the NV understand that we weren't joking. The NV came to the table, and talked seriously about peace. There was no appeasement--only the threat of total destruction if the NV continued their course.

Reagan did not appease. He stood in the Soviet Union, and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" There was NO appeasement, just straight, where the bear shat, talk. His repeated meetings with Soviet officials were not to try to appease the Soviets. Reagan told them that we would cease ANY talks, if they didn't get their s%@**! together.

Each of those men KNEW that they couldn't negotiate, using appeasement. They KNEW that they had to negotiate from a position of strength. That's the mistake that the neo-libs are making. We don't make concessions until the terrorists quit. Until then, s$@*%%#!! happens!

The GOP hole they are in just keeps getting deeper and deeper and ...

I agree completely with Lionheart. When GWB speaks, I am immediately reminded of famous scientists (of which there are so many) who suffered from malapropisms or other maladies, due to the clutter of information and brilliance in their mind. But my problem is, how does one choose the scientist GWB most closely resembles? It might even take a famous scientist just to figure that out, but I'll give it a try!

I'm thinking Einstein - I know it's a bit obvious and this deserves more thought, but let's think - Einstein dealt mostly in theoretical strains, provable on paper but difficult to see in real life. And Bush loves a good theory. Maybe Issac Newton. It's been said that he would forget names of family members. I could see GWB doing something like that. And also there's the similarity in their love and grasp of calculus.

I guess that's about it. GWB is a combination of Einstein and Newton - he has theories that see very little "real-world" evidence (but who cares?), and then he forgets about them when they don't work out, and just keeps developing new theories. The man is clearly a genius!

Tough Chuck 9:13 issues his manly challenge from how many thousand miles from a hostile border?

I understand that the US Military is paying cash to various groups in Iraq with the understanding that those groups won't attack our troops.

Is that appeasement? Or just good old Italian-American protectionism?

Oh my goodness, if Ronald Reagan is being held up as an example of a "brain" in politics, we're in serious, serious trouble. This was the man who thought we could combat drug use by telling kids to "just say no". The result was a strong, steady increase in drug use throughout 80's. Brilliant!

President Reagan also thought that the government could collect less money but spend more, and somehow it would all work out. The result was trillions of dollars in debt that the current administration has increased by a few trillion more. Another intellectual triumph for The Gipper! That particular idea was so inspired it is now referred to in economics classes as "Voodoo Economics".

Lastly, to Lionheart: I think it's kind of you to defend Pres. Bush with the argument of malapropism, but you are clearly a man of intellegence, and so I also know that deep in your heart you don't believe your own argument. George Bush is no tongue-tied, socially awkward genius. He has never invented anything, or even run a successful business. I know you this. You know this. But I still respect your effort to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

In their rabid worship of the GOP, the neocons will believe ANYTHING they are told.

More people are registering democrat than ever.

Way to go America!

Yet another case of a smarmy leftist putting words in people's mouth. President Bush has never said that negotiating with "adversaries" makes you an appeaser.

He did say -- and it is true -- that there are some adversaries that are just so awful that negotiating with them accomplishes nothing.

Look at it this way Thomas -
if there weren't "smarmy leftists" around, we surely would be one step closer to goose-stepping.

Keep up the good work leftists!

Bush, Cheney, the GOP and Karl Rove are the absolute masters of double-talk, bait-and-switching and all out lying.

Like vacuum-cleaner salesman addressing their new recruits about the features and benefits of ...

Sorry Bush/Cheney worshippers, It's getting to the point that I don't believe ANYTHING they say.
It all started when it was revealed that no WMD's were ever in Iraq.

I don't see anyone taking the challenge, just a bunch of name calling.

Come on, 1 of you has to possess the oratory skills to convince AlQaeda and all it's branches to give up, they were wrong, we are right and will still love you.

Just 1 of you. There are many know it alls on these pages everyday of how Bush screwed it up. So you must know how to fix it...

Come on...just 1

Anon, I continue to engage with you -- against my better judgment -- in the forlorn hope that your ignorance is not completely invincible.

So are you saying that leftist misrepresentation of the facts is justified, because we'd all be "goose-stepping" otherwise?

American conservatism, unlike European conservatism, could never lead to "goose-stepping." That's because what American conservatism is trying to conserve is the classical liberal principles of the American Revolution -- consensual, constitutionally-limited government, personal accountability of free citizens, and economic liberty.

European conservatism, on the other hand, was always more authoritarian, seeking to maintain the power of Church and Crown. The revolutionary reaction against that kind of conservatism was typified by the French Revolution -- which American liberals have been trying to mimic, off and on, since the Jefferson administration.

Unfortunately, French-style revolutionary ideals became the true ancestor of modern totalitarianism -- communism and fascism alike. These projects were characterized by a worship of the State and the "general will," which must always prevail against the mere individual. Modern American "liberalism" has far more in common with the collectivist nature of both communism and fascism than American conservatism ever has been or ever will be.

"It's getting to the point that I don't believe ANYTHING they say."

Only a completely arrogant fool ever discounts everything anybody says, no matter how much credibility he's lost. The shepherd boy in Aesop's fable was a congenital liar -- but if the villagers had listened to him, they wouldn't have lost their sheep to the wolf.

As for "rabid worship," Anon, I see a classic case of projection here. Conservatives don't worship the State or its servants (unlike the screaming groupies of a certain Democratic nominee-presumptive). We reserve our worship for a higher power.

What you call "rabid worship" is our reluctance to join in your rabid detestation of President Bush. I doubt GWB will ever get his face carved on Mount Rushmore, but neither do I accept the demon-caricature your kind paints of him. Which of us has a more balanced, thoughtful view?

to anonymous:

You haven't believed one word that Bush has said since 2000 because you don't believe that he legitimately won the election.

I again challenge you, if it were a democrat in the oval office while we were fighting a war on terrorism, would you still oppose it? (I know this is hypothetical, democrats wouldn't fight the war, they would just surrender.)

The democrats in congress have never accepted president Bush as the legally elected president and thus have tried to thwart everything he has done. They have called him a loser when talking to school children (Harry Reid), tried since day one to undermine our great soldiers in the war on terror simply because it was during Bush's (illegitimate they say) term. They have wanted us to lose the war and have as many casualties as possible so they could blame it on Bush. They have done everything they can to cause us to lose 'Bush's' war thus costing us many lives that would not have been lost had they just backed the war and not emboldened the enemy with their anti-Bush rhetoric.

Anonymous, you started hating Bush long before WMD.

Look at it this way, Anonymous. I didn't see you spewing anti-preemptive rhetoric when it was Clinton bombing Milosevic. What did Milosevic ever do to us?

The republicans never fought against Clinton (and our soldiers) during that wasteful 'squirmish'.

Look at it this way Big Al.
Some of us (72,000 Obama fans showed up at his campaign rally recently - filled a stadium like a rock star) smelled a rat at the very beginning with this bogus intelligence re: WMD's in Iraq and made our voices heard.
The rest voted for Bush and Cheney anyway.
Don't blame me.
The responsibility rests with you.

I find it amazing that some one who thinks they are politically "gifted" and accurate about the world and America's role in it has to hide behind a name spelled "Anonymous". Second, I'd suggest Gus, liberal larry, and those others who think Gus is another Henry-Kissinger-in-disguise need to reassess his point of departure -- Gus is obviously violently opposed to President Bush and this administration and would never find anything good to say. Even if the President were to announce an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq they and their kind would still find some faults to opine about. Oh well, it takes all kinds and that is what has made this country great.

Oh, those funny, funny neocons!

Always black-and-whiting everything.

Big Al sees no difference between legitimate US action in Yugoslavia and an illegal, and immoral war/occupation based on faulty intelligence in Iraq.

As if we're all supposed to roll over and just do what BushCo tells us.

I think it amazing that someone who thinks they are politically "gifted" and accurate about the world and Ameica's role in it has to hide behind a name spelled "floridian" -

as that is supposed to be a real name.

I think the neocons are slowly losing their minds by not noticing the sinking ship they are on.
And they always reveal themselves the clearest when confronted with facts, figures, and data collected from their dreaded "drive-by media."

Anon -- Why was US action in Yugoslavia "legitimate"?

Was it authorized by the United Nations?

Please state the basis in international law for the American use of force against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia.

Oh Thomas...why can you make sense on this one but not on your evolution clutch?

I have hope for you after all! :P

But don't hold your breath for a response from Anon. Well at least any response that actually and truthfully answers the question.

On 21 December 1995, by adopting resolution 1035(1995) the United Nations Security Council established for operations within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina the United Nations International Police Task Force IPTF and a United Nations Civilian Office .

Charles -- I call 'em like I see 'em. Which seems to have the effect of cheesing pretty much everybody off about one thing or another. :)

Why can't our resident neocons recognize that the group they voted into office is the most monstrous administration in our history?

Pride?
Partisanship?
Just plain stupid?

No, Thomas, your self-absorbed neocon rantings aren't "cheesing" anybody off.
We the people (hungry for change) just blow you off.
But you DO get an A- in self-importance. :>

Anon, I'm perfectly aware that intelligent people arouse the hostility of the congenitally stupid. Watch "Idiocracy" for a good illustration.

Again, Sir, you proposed that the war in Kosovo was more "legimate" than the war in Iraq. What was the basis in recognized international law for the Kosovo war? Take your time.

Reagan won the Cold war? Reagan never served in the military. There were solders on the Eastern Front of Western Democracy for over forty years. They sacrificed for what? They defended us. Reagan gave speeches. Soldiers spend winters enduring freezing weather, they kept the Warsaw Pact at bay and they did this with honor only to have their duty raped from them by conservatives republicans. As a NATO veteran, thanks loads!

You libs don't get it, don't you? Bush Sr, Reagan, Kennedy and the likes all sat down with our adversaries, but if you remember history, or do you all have selective memory? They were ready to pull the trigger, so to speak, and did so. Kennedy had the missle crises and he blockaded Cuba, Reagan had SDI, Bush Sr went into Iraq, if only for a bit. Now, do you think Obama can do the same? NOT ON YOUR LIFE! Are you willing to take that chance? Neither am I.