What did Neville Chamberlain do? The meaning of appeasement "You
keep using this word," Inigo Montoya says in the Princess Bride.
"I do not think it means what you think it means." Right-wing
pundits use the word "appeasement" with regularity, and at least
one -- talk show yakker Kevin James -- objectively doesn't know.
In an appearance on Chris Matthews' Hardball show, James tried
to equate Barack Obama's plan to open diplomatic channels with
Iran to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Trouble is,
he didn't know what Chamberlain actually did, as this painful
video and transcript make clear. Chris Matthews is often
objectionable himself, but he hits the absolutely correct
distinction here. Talking to the enemy? Not appeasement. Giving
them half of Czechoslovakia? Appeasement. Plenty of lessons to
be had here. That's one of them. The other is this: if you're
going to call somebody out for doing the "exact same thing" as a
historical figure, maybe hit Wikipedia to find out what that
historical figure d