The truth about Barack Obama and Neville Chamberlain
During a Fox News broadcast last week, a conservative panelist accused President Barack Obama of being a “Neville Chamberlain” figure, when it comes to confronting Muslim extremists.
Chamberlain, of course, was the British Prime Minister in the 1930s whose efforts to appease and mollify Adolph Hitler put him squarely on the wrong side of history.
Conservatives have worked aggressively to characterize Mr. Obama as a leader cut from the same cloth and blinded to the threat of Islamic radicalism by his own religious and racial sympathies.
(For the record, Mr. Obama is a Christian, born in Hawaii, and was raised for most of his childhood in a white household by his white mother.)
A regular theme on Fox News is the claim that the President’s first act after taking the oval office was to return to Britain a statue of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a figure lionized by the right.
Glenn Beck and others have argued that the gesture was a repudiation of Britain’s Colonial history, a sign of Mr. Obama’s preference for the dark-skinned peoples once oppressed by Mr. Churchill’s empire.
Responding to this kind of nonsense is tedious, but I think it’s also important.
In this case — as is so often true when wrestling far-right conspiracy theories — the claims are almost perfectly Orwellian, in the sense that they don’t just fudge the truth. They actually turn truth on its head.
First, a bit of history. It’s true, of course, that Neville Chamberlain was a pacifist to the point of recklessness prior to World War 2.
But it often goes unmentioned that he was leader of Britain’s Conservative Party. And like Chamberlain, most American conservatives of the 1930s were staunchly pacifist and isolationist.
Robert Taft led the conservative wing of the GOP for the better part of two decades, and his opposition to America’s fight against Hitler continued long after Chamberlain had thrown in the towel.
Conservative icon Charles Lindbergh — whose father was a Republican congressman — also campaigned aggressively against America’s involvement in the war as late as 1941.
Long after all British opposition to the war effort had collapsed, Lindbergh was still championing the appeasement cause, urging Franklin Roosevelt to sign a neutrality pact with Hitler.
(Lindbergh eventually resigned his military commission as an act of protest against the Democratic president’s eagerness to help Churchill and the British.)
A particularly bitter pill for the Right is the fact that it was the liberal wing of the GOP — men like Wendell Willkie and Thomas Dewey — who helped build support in this country for the desperate fight against fascism.
To be fair, many hard-left liberals, union leaders, socialists and American communists were also opposed to our involvement in the War.
But of course, it was two Democratic presidents, Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who led the country during its great campaign against Germany and Japan.
So how about Mr. Obama? Do his war policies resemble those of the conservatives, Taft, Lindbergh and Chamberlain, or are they more akin to those of Roosevelt, Truman and Churchill?
During his tenure, Mr. Obama has maintained the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has stepped up predator drone attacks on terror cells in Pakistan.
He has continued to investigate and prosecute domestic and foreign Muslim terrorists aggressively. He has articulated in detail his full unwavering support for Israel.
Yes, Mr. Obama’s father was a Muslim from Kenya and, yes, the president’s middle name is Hussein. Those facts have titillated conservatives and provided juicy fodder for AM radio hosts.
But there is simply zero evidence to suggest that this President is soft on terror or shares any of the “appeasement” tendencies that shaped much of the American Right during the 1930s and 40s.
None of this is to suggest that this Administration doesn’t deserve scrutiny and criticism for its handling of the very real terror threat. Obviously, this kind of criticism is vital in a democracy.
Our own North Country congressman, Republican Rep. Chris Gibson, is currently urging the President to rethink the need for a Department of Homeland Security.
He also voted this week against maintaining provisions of the Bush-era Patriot Act.
“I have long been critical of the PATRIOT Act, because I believe that in the process of defending our liberties, we should not step on them,” Gibson said in a statement after the vote.
“We must stay within the confines of the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights and the 4th Amendment.”
But there is a great, gaping void between this kind of loyal and thoughtful position and much of the racially charged, hysterical and deceptive rhetoric that shapes modern conservative conspiracy theories.
Tags: politics, President Barack Obama
So Brian, getting back to the return of the Churchill bust- what is your opinion on why it was sent back? I won’t bother expecting you to go into Lindbergs anit-semitism or FDRs failures or Trumans near hysterical hatred of of anything labeled Republican, but I am interested in your take on why Obama sent back the bust.
I didn’t know Churchill had a bust. I thought he was a guy.
But seriously, folks, I have always viewed England as the enemy. We had to fight them twice and twice we had to kick them out.
So I don’t really care about the whereabouts of Churchill and his bust.
Since Brian started this with an item from Fox News, worth a look at this, purportedly from a Fox staffer, who says the network just “makes stuff up”: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201102100007
That said, I certainly agree that the Churchill bust return is one of the most important issues of our day.
Thank God we have completely unbiased and fair minded institutions like Media Matters to get the truth out!!! And to be clear, George Soros is a Saint!!!!!!!
It is worth remembering that the United States did not willingly enter the war against Hitler. Germany declared war against the United States, even though Germany did not have a treaty obligation to its ally Japan to do so. Would the US have gone to war against Germany by choice? Probably, but we don’t know.
Given Obama has escalated the debacle in Afghanistan, increased the Defense Budget in two consecutive budgets, and, as you mentioned, increased the use of drones in Pakistan, I find it hard to call him soft on muslim extremists. On top of that, he seems reluctant to even address our continued garrisoning of half the known world by our military. All at a time when we’re running trillion dollar plus a year federal deficits and have nearly $140 Billion in combined state deficits next year alone. If he was such a pacifist, wouldn’t he begin to make a case for disassembling the gargantuan military/industrial/congressional complex? If anything, he’s expanded it.
Certainly it is a grand irrelevancy, but I am glad Churchill’s bust is out of the Whitehouse. Churchill was an incompetent military planner (Gallipoli), viciously vindictive (he thought up the Black & Tans for Ireland), a brutal racist and old style colonialist (check out his remarks on Gandi). Certainly he showed leadership in WWII, but otherwise he was a loathsome figure, albeit ‘colorful’. To love Churchill is to know little about him except the myth and marketing. Obama, unlike the previous President, is smart enough to look beyond the myth.
TomL,
You only have to look at CPAC’s lionizing of Regan to understand that the conservative movement has no interest in analyzing history, just using it as a tool to further their agenda.
Heard a bit on Morning Edition about Rumsfeld’s speech at CPAC. He said that back in his day, we only had to worry about socialists outside our borders. Good for a laugh line from the ignorant, but completely at odds with our early 20th century socialist movement, which gave us all of our current working class protections.
Beck loves to analyze symbolic gestures to come up with his wacko theories, when plain and simple facts (see ICIGWHIJ’s comment above) can easily counter his rants. What’s the difference between Beck and those loonies that hold cardboard signs at street corners, claiming “the end is near”? Larger audience?
Bret4207 @ 8:25 am said–
“but I am interested in your take on why Obama sent back the bust.”
Here’s my understanding: Tony Blair loaned the bust to the US after 9/11. GWB gave it space in the Oval Office. Obama chose to give a a bust of Abraham Lincoln pride of place in his office instead. That decision having been made, which would be more appropriate–loaning someone else’s art on to another US location, or returning it to its owner?
Dale Hobson
NCPR Online
Yes, but replacing Churchhill’s bust with the bust of Lincoln is not good. Lincoln is now out of favor with “the Party of Lincoln”.
Lincoln like Churchill had a pretty dark side. One interesting similarity we may see with Obama and Lincoln could come if the supreme court decides that the new health care law is unconstitutional. When the Dred Scott decision came down prior to the civil war, Lincoln first considered dissolving the supreme court, then he decided to, instead, simply ignore them.
I should clarify. The decision to ignore Dred Scott specifically was not the dark part (that decision was despicable). the dark part is that he had the audacity to ignore the judicial branch of government. Pretty tough stuff!
Paul, Lincoln had no power to dissolve the Supreme Court after the Dred Scott decision. The decision was in 1857, and he wasn’t President until 5 years later (1861). By the time he ascended to the Presidency, he wasn’t considering doing away with the Supreme Court – so far as I am aware.
He did, of course, denounce the Dred Scott decision, and it was a major issue in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. He certainly thought that the Taney Court had stepped beyond its bounds, and had decided wrongly.
Paul,
I don’t see any similarities between Dred Scott and health care legislation, besides the fact that conservatives use Dred as a dog-whistle for laws they don’t like.
what’s the similarity between Dred and a law that hasn’t even reached the supremes yet?
“what’s the similarity between Dred and a law that hasn’t even reached the supremes yet?”
Verplank there isn’t any comparison between the laws.
The point is when Lincoln became president he ignored the courts decision and allowed freed blacks to remain in Northern states and not be returned to their southern owners as the law required.
If (and I say if) the supreme court determines (as other courts have) that this new law is unconstitutional what will the president do? That is the only comparison I was trying to make. It is just a “what if” question.
Two Illinois men pondering very different things at different times in history.
Carry on with the other discussion.
Speaking of comparisons to our new health care law…
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110131/UPDATES/110131031/Bill-would-require-all-S-D-citizens-buy-gun
Sorry, I didn’t mean to get us off on a crazy tangent. Go back to the Chamberlain thing?
whats more interesting than why Obama sent back the Churchill bust is why the conservative conspiracy theorists wove that into their rants. It would seem to be a pretty minor thing compared to say being really born in Kenya or secretly a Muslim. Its possible they can do that with anything.
Obama seems indecisive on war matters. I don’t know if that is better than being a pacifist, but it is not a good trait for the president.
After being against the wars in the Senate, he is forced to support the war as commander-in-chief. Not real courage in conviction.
After signing an executive order to close Gitmo, Gitmo remains open ON HIS WATCH.
He has taken every position under the sun dealing with Egypt. He took a scolding from the Saudi king. He changed his mind. He changed his mind, again.
There are nations who are just plain giving up on Obama. Whatever happens in the middle east will happen without Obama being able to shape it. He has “voted present” instead of taking a leadership position.
I am afraid that JDM is right. If you look at comments from the middle east, especially what was our staunchest ally, they are none to happy with US foreign policy.
Egypt is perhaps the beginning of the domino effect that Bush2 predicted after Iraq? I hope we can handle it?
It seems that people do not really know where he is coming from which is okay domestically but not internationally.
Look at this latest debacle with the envoy they sent to “nudge” Muberek out of office. The guy says the next week that he is the best man to lead Egypt. Look at Gitmo or trying the terrorists through the legal system in the US etc. what happened to that?
It may be a matter of style. In the world of advocates and activists which he comes from speeches and advocacy matter as much or more than actual action and long term responsibility.
Thanks Dale, hadn’t heard that theory.
On the Chamberlain-Obama comparison, I can see what people mean. You could make a more accurate comparison of Obama-Carter. Appeasement rarely works in cases of international stature. Look at a North Korea. Over 50 years of ignoring and appeasement and putting up with the continual slap in the face, all to keep South Korea from harm, and it continues today. It probably will continue for the foreseeable future. Carters attempts at appeasement failed miserably. Obamas attempts are failing too.
I’m not advocating a hard line, never budge mindset. But I think that there comes a time to have some character and stand by your convictions. Clinton was famous for seeing what the polls said before deciding what his convictions were, Obama isn’t quite the same in that respect, he simply seems to lack any character whatsoever.
First ask yourself if you care what the leaders and people of other countries think of US. Then ask yourself why leaders and people of other countries should care about what we think of them.
We worry too much about our image when we should care more about our substance.
Also there is no comparison between the danger of fascist Germany and Japan or the Soviet Union and Muslim extremists.
The threats are not even in the same realm. I think this throws off the comparison between Obama and Chamberlin.
Mervel: Also there is no comparison between the danger of fascist Germany and Japan or the Soviet Union and Muslim extremists.
Not sure which way you are comparing. Hilter didn’t jump in a plane and take out a building full of innocent people.
If Egypt and the Middle East fall into Muslim extremist hands, we will see much more innocent killing in the name of Allah.
The “appeaser” label is bunk and is consistent with Republicans’ efforts to characterize Democrats generally as soft on defense and the war against terror. With regard to Egypt, the U.S. was essentially a bystander that has little leverage on the situation. The government was forced to navigate through a difficult and uncertain situation in which it had virtually no ability to influence the outcome. In circumstances like these, it is impossible to get an “A”. If you can through the test with a “C“, you’ve probably done as well as you can. This also accounts for the fact that the Republicans were essentially silent on the issue.
The bigger issue in viewing the events in Egypt is the American people’s view of Islam. There is a strong undercurrent of concern in the American public about whether Muslims are “like us”, i.e. just the next wave of immigrants to our shores, or that they are in fact fundamentally different because of their religion and how that religion informs their values and behavior. It’s clear that Obama subscribes to the former proposition and has acted accordingly.
One can make a plausible argument to the contrary, but it raises a host of questions, the most important of which is: “If they are so suspect as to be un-American or undemocratic by nature, how can we possibly believe that efforts to convert the populations of these true believers in hidebound Islamic societies (like Iraq and Afghanistan) to support of our geopolitical agenda and such things as democracy and rule of law as we understand it?” In other words, if we can’t absorb Muslims in our society where they can experience its benefits, then how can we expect to convert them to our ideals on their home turf? Yet, many citizens and politicians have supported the wars, while calling into question the patriotism of American Muslims. It seems to me that, if you reject the belief that they are like us, then you’ve got to rethink the wisdom of the Iraq and Afghanistan enterprises.
And, by the way, to vilify Chamberlain as the “appeaser” from the vantage point of a 21st century American is more than a bit smug. The UK and its Commonwealth had lost close to a million men in WWI. That would translate into 10 million Americans by today’s standards. What kind of trauma do you suppose that would cause to our society? Is it any wonder that a country robbed of its youth and put in tremendous debt as a result of one war would have a politician go to great length to avoid a repeat of a tragedy that had occurred 20 years earlier? This presented politicians in the UK, France and much of Western Europe with a true “Sophie’s Choice”. While I am a great admirer of Churchill, I believe that dismissing Chamberlain with such a simple label betrays a lack of historical perspective.
Bret, did you even read the media matters piece. Or do you not care?
Sorry. I forgot that George Soros is the Abraham Goldstein of our society, and as such is the devil, and because somebody on talk radio said he funds media matters, he and they deserve to fry in hell for all eternity.
Carry on.
Hi JDM,
Any group of fanatics can jump in a plane and kill innocent people. Hitler the individual was not a problem, Hitler and the German military machine which was stronger than the US by far in 1940 was a problem and a much much bigger problem than all of the terrorist groups combined, much greater than all middle east countries combined.
It was a realistic threat to end the United States and most Western Democracies, we could have lost and we did not know if we would win that war.
The threat we face from Islamic Terrorists is real, but it is not even close to being a threat which could ever militarily end our country. They can kill us no doubt about that. The fact is we rolled over the strongest military in the Middle East in three weeks. The terrorist groups are hard to get rid of, much like rats or other vermin, but they won’t destroy us as a people.
So Obama’s response to minimizing risk from terrorism cannot be compared to what Europe was dealing with in the case of Germany. I don’t like his style I think it is inconsistent, but I don’t think it is appeasement. Egypt won’t “fall into” the hands of Islamic extremists, they may very well choose to be Islamic Extremists and that is their choice filled with its own consequences.
These countries are very poor. The worst case situation mainly has to deal with losing our supply of oil which would really hurt our economy, but that is nothing compared to the threat we faced from Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union.
I am more concerned with this country falling into the hands of Christian extremists than I worry about Egypt falling into the hands of Muslim extremists. Why? Because I live in the USA and never plan on visiting Egypt or any place in that part of the World.
Part of our problem there and everywhere is that we stick our nose in everywhere and people don’t like that.
“Bret, did you even read the media matters piece. Or do you not care?”
Yes, I did. An “unnamed source” made allegations. The allegations fit Media Matters and Soros template for doing harm to Fox and the right in general. I’m pretty sure that if Fox had a report from an unnamed source making allegations about MM’s editorial lean you’d discount it outright.
Pete, I’m far more concerned about the country continuing it’s drive towards liberal extremism than I am about Chirstians, Islamists, Nazis or anything else.
bret – liberal extremism is an oxymoron.
Heh, yeah, ya got a point there.
Wow, talk about bad reporting. He doesn’t even get to his premise anywhere in his copy.
Let’s get something out in the open, though it is most assuredly tedious trying to explain history to you liberals and certainly tiring having to deflect your condescending arguments, but I’ll try to sum up my point quickly.
FDR has NOT been routinely criticized for his involvement in the war. Hardly. Well, I’ve never heard a conservative arguing that point. What has been argued is his propensity to enlarge government. We, conservatives, do not like a government rife with self entitlement programs, duplicitous agencies (that being quite a generous statement), higher taxes, much going to fraud and wasteful programs, etc.
Is that understood?
Obama has NOT aggressively gone after terrorism. As a vociferous opponent to the Iraq war before he became President, this author would have us believe he somehow became a believer once he awkwardly took the oath. No. None of his rhetoric or actions seem to suggest that opinion at all. In fact, he reduced the surge number and in fact, argued that it would be an utter failure, only to have been proven wrong, again. The surge worked.
Placing a date of departure on any war effort is not only ludicrous and dangerous, but helpful to the enemy. No general in his right mind would ever suggest such a thing unless the war was already won. For example, signifying a cease fire in 3 days is an act of assurance to an already known outcome.
The brits were glad to loan us the Bust of Churchill for four more years. Obama said, no thanks. Not because he loved Lincoln so much, but because he hates the west that much. Do you remember him denying France’s dignitaries’ request to dine?
And what gift did he present to the Queen? CDs? DVDs? um. Stupid or Snubbery? Either way, uncalled for.
The point: Obama has an agenda: to lessen the west and increase the east, the third world. Why else would you give 2 Billion dollars to Brazil to drill for oil America will never benefit from? Who can explain that?
The comparisons of Barack Obama with Neville Chamberlain have nothing to do with the fact Obama is a liberal and Chamberlain was a conservative. The point is Chamberlain thought he could talk things over with Hitler and go through his concerns with a pencil. Mr. Obama does the same thing with nations that support terrorism. As his speeches on Islam and the Middle East show, the President is of the belief that if you give into these terrorist groups and nations (don’t forget North Korea), they will stop causing trouble. As Neville Chamberlain, the British conservative and labor party members, and sadly all of Europe learned, appeasement doesn’t work.