Today's Kerfuffle

I'm glad Obama and the Democrats are reacting, perhaps overreacting, to George W. Bush's provocative statements in Israel today. Better than reacting too little.

What's the deal about not negotiating with terrorists, or other bad actors? We've done it before (hell, we made an alliance with the Soviet Union in WWII) and we'll do it again whenever it suits us. It's called diplomacy. It's what diplomats do. You talk to the main actors. Even if, or especially if, they are bad people. These are the go-to people: the people you need to influence most to get what you want.

Sometimes it doesn't work out well: Hamas recently gave Jimmy Carter the shaft for his willingness to speak to them. But that's how it goes in the real world. There are no guarantees. Carter is to be commended for not allowing pride to interfere with necessary discussions.

I think the basic fear isn't about rewarding bad behavior, but rather the flop-sweat fear that the Iranians or the North Koreans, or whomever, have Svengali-like powers to hypnotize us and get whatever they want from us. The Bush Administration has often worked through projection, accusing others of the bad faith it holds closest to its heart. The Bushies are afwaid, afwaid, afwaid of the Iranians.

Obama should call Bush and Cheney the cowards they so clearly are.