[RKC]

In short: No, Obama offering to talk to Iran is not appeasement.

Appeasement would be if Obama gives away the sovereignty of another state (Israel, Iraq, etc.) in order to better secure our current "peace" with Iran.

Talking alone is neither good nor bad (US/USSR Summit meetings, Truman, Eisenhower, Cuban Missile crisis with JFK, Nixon and China, Reagan/Gorbachev, etc.). The results are all that matter.

Worrying about what Obama might give away makes some sense, given his views and lack of experience. But supporting or continuing Bush's policy of silence IS ALSO foolish.

After all, talking is not bad, in and of itself. The people/topics are everything. The word appeasement wouldn't even have entered the language in the sense we use it if Winston Churchill had been PM at Munich. And Churchill, who knew and trusted his own mind and heart, was never afraid to talk to anyone. He was the one who suggested the Summit meetings (and gave them their name) by saying that "jaw, jaw" is better than "war, war."

I suppose it is best that Bush doesn't talk with other leaders. He is no Churchill and probably WOULD give away too much by failing to see with his limited intellect what he was doing. His not talking has probably saved us from worse than we know.....

David McCullough wrote a nice book about Truman. It has raised his standing with people. But it is the story of an average man doing his best during extraordinary times. Think how much better the world would have been if a truly extraordinary man - A Lincoln, a TR, a Churchill had been in power.

Bush is not evil. But he is, at best, average. Think how much better things could be right now. The two candidates are likely better able to lead us than Bush. But are they great thinkers? Great leaders? Time will tell when one of them wins. Let's hope so for our sake and our nation's.....

The good news is that the Clinton/Bush era seems to be over.....