President Bush, Meet Reductio Ad Hitlerum

Never let it be said that President Bush mocks civility and then rests on his laurels. Hot on the heels of discussing his great sacrifice in the Global War On Terror (giving up golf), President Bush rolled out Godwin's Law in a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament:

In a speech before the Knesset, Bush compared calls to talk with unnamed terrorist groups as a "foolish delusion" that was suggested before World War II.

"As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided,' " Bush said. "We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Former President Jimmy Carter recently wrapped up a trip to the Middle East, which included talks with leaders of Hamas -- an Islamic militant group that controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Carter hoped to persuade Hamas to negotiate with Israel in an attempt to reach a broader Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Hamas has not been included in peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, under President Mahmoud Abbas, who control the West Bank. Israel and the United States refuse to negotiate with Hamas until it renounces terrorism and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

Ah, yes. Robust diplomacy is now nothing more than appeasement.

It is pretty clear that the President wasn't speaking merely out of historical interest (as if that was possible). This was a shot directed at former President Carter and Senator Barack Obama, one that the Straight Talk Express was all too eager to pick up while at the same time conveniently deleting the Reagan administration's Iran negotiations from history.

On a closing note, that unnamed Senator President Bush mentions was from Idaho.

And he was a Republican.