Since Kevin James couldn't do it, I'll answer Chris Matthews question. What did Neville Chamberlain do wrong in Munich in 1938?

I'm going to gloss over a lot of detail here for brevity's sake. Adolf Hitler invaded Austria in March 1938 as part of a larger program that was sold as a unification of Germanic peoples. His next step was to demand that a German speaking area of Czechoslovakia (called the Sudetenland) be ceded to Germany. Czechoslovakia had a mutual defense treaty with France, and France had a mutual defense treaty with England. If Germany invaded Czechoslovakia then France was duty-bound to declare war on Germany. And if France found itself at war with Germany, then England was duty-bound to come to France's aid.

In other words, Hitler's irresponsible demands were threatening to pull all of Europe into a Second World War. Just twenty years earlier, in the First World War, France had suffered 1.7 million killed and 4.2 million injured, while the U.K. suffered one million killed and 1.7 million injured. In total, the war had cost 20 million people their lives and injured another 22 million. And when it was all over, no one could make a convincing argument for why the war had been necessary. It was in this context that Neville Chamberlain sought to avoid a resumption of a continent-wide war, with new and more powerful weapons. He decided to sell-out the Czechoslovakians, and got France's agreement to renege on their treaty obligations. Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier decided to use a strategy of appeasement to prevent war. Here is what happened:

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden on 15 September [1938] and agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.

Chamberlain met Hitler in Godesberg on September 22 to confirm the agreements. Hitler however, aiming at using the crisis as a pretext for war, now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories, giving the Czechoslovakian army no time to adapt their defence measures to the new borders. To achieve a solution, Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini suggested a conference of the major powers in Munich and on September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and agreed to Mussolini's proposal (actually prepared by Hermann Göring) and signed the Munich Agreement accepting the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland. The Czechoslovak government, though not party to the talks, promised to abide by the agreement on September 30.

The Sudetenland was occupied by Germany between October 1 and October 10, 1938. This unification with the Third Reich was followed by the flight or expulsion of most of the region's Czech population to areas remaining within Czechoslovakia.

The remaining parts of Czechoslovakia were subsequently invaded and annexed by Germany in March 1939.

The initial reaction to the Munich agreement in England and France was very positive. No one wanted war. But the strategy backfired because it only made Hitler stronger and more ambitious. And it made it much harder to defeat him when war eventually became unavoidable.

Ever since, it has been an article of faith that it is never a good idea to appease your enemies. However, this hard won lesson is being misappropriated by the Bush administration, and McCain and Lieberman, to suggest that simply talking to your enemies is constructively the same as appeasing them. Neville Chamberlain isn't reviled by history for traveling to Munich and holding discussions with Adolf Hitler. He is reviled for handing over the Sudetenland to Hitler without a fight, as if that would make the problem of National Socialism go away.

Chamberlain made a gamble for peace. He tried to spare the world a catastrophe. And, remember, while Germany lost the war, England lost their empire. Ultimately, Chamberlain made the wrong call. He did so in part because he so wanted to avoid war. He also misjudged his enemy. And that is the real key.

Hitler did not have limited territorial objectives, but nearly boundless territorial ones. And everywhere he sent his armies he intended to commit atrocities of unprecedented and unimaginable savagery. Not only that, but he had the military wherewithal to carry these ambitions out. And the question we need to ask McCain, Lieberman, and Bush is, how does modern day Iran resemble Nazi Germany in any of these respects?

They have no military wherewithal to seize and hold territory. They are making no territorial demands. Their human rights record is fairly deplorable but nothing compared to Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe. If you ask Iran what they want, they want assurances that we won't attack them, not the other way around. They would like normalized relations and a lifting of sanctions. It's hard to see how they have much of anything at all in common with Nazi Germany.

The one area where there is a similarity is in their anti-Semitic pronouncements, and in their aid to groups that commit and have committed lethal acts against innocent Jews. As long as Iran engages in this rhetoric and behavior, they have to be considered as a hostile nation. They cannot be rewarded or appeased for their irresponsible actions. But that doesn't mean that we can't talk to them. It means that if we are going to give them anything we must get something in return.

Iran is more powerful because we toppled Saddam Hussein and insisted on letting the Iraqis elect a Shi'ite-dominated government. They now have an ally in Iraq, rather than an implacable foe. That may have been a strategic error on our part, but it not Iran's fault. We must now live with the consequences of our actions. We have a weaker negotiating hand than we had before Bush became president and ran our foreign policy off the rails. But Iran did not suddenly become as powerful as Nazi Germany. They do not require appeasement, nor do we need to attack them now before they get stronger. They cannot and will not attack Israel, except by proxy. And we have no good reason not to talk to them in the interests of peace.

Yes, they are our enemies and the enemies of Israel. But talking to them is not appeasing them. Neville Chamberlain didn't make a mistake by talking to Hitler. He made a mistake by caving in to his demands. No one is suggesting that we cave in to Iran's demands. And Iran isn't about to conquer half of Central Asia and exterminate 9 million innocent people if we get our strategy wrong. Enough of the warmongering. It's time to have a little diplomacy for a change.

I don't get much hate mail. I might get one piece every two months or so, and it usually just tells me I'm stupid. But then I don't have Bill O'Reilly stirring up the nativists, either. It's really disturbing to see the kind of mail that Markos gets. I know why liberals are angry...look at the economy, for starters. But why are Bill O'Reilly's listeners so angry? What explains the hatred of so many people on the right?

And, to be honest, I don't think this is an unusual situation. There seems to always be a certain percentage of people, in every country, that basically feel like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter do (or say they do). It only becomes a serious problem when the group grows large enough to start putting their enemies up against the wall. As Roger Waters put it:

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me,
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks Jewish!
And that one's a coon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I'd have all of you shot!

I mean, how is that any different from what people are writing to Markos?

As far I can tell, the Republicans are now officially suicidal. Voting against funding wars they support and voting against timelines that Americans support, and voting against a GI Bill for the soldiers that is just unconscionable.

Most of the people that do Senate predictions play it pretty safe. Until they see a poll that shows a challenger well ahead, they tend to keep races in the 'lean incumbent' or 'toss-up' category. But I don't need any polls to tell me that the Republicans in the Senate are set up for a world of pain. I've seen what polls are out there, and they inform my opinion, but I'm going with my gut here. No toss-ups or leans, just flat-out predictions for who will win.

1. Mark Warner of Virginia
2. Tom Udall of New Mexico
3. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
4. Mark Begich of Alaska
5. Mark Udall of Colorado
6. Ronnie Musgrove of Mississippi
7. Jeff Merkley of Oregon (but not Novick)
8. Al Franken of Minnesota
9. Kay Hagan of North Carolina
10. Rick Noriega of Texas

Right now, I think all 10 of these seats are more likely to fall to the Democrats than not. But that's not all. The following contenders will have plenty of opportunity to gain strength and win.

1. Tom Allen of Maine
2. Scott Kleeb of Nebraska
3. Andrew Rice of Oklahoma
4. Bruce Lunsford of Kentucky
5. Larry LaRocco of Idaho
6. Jim Martin of Georgia (if he wins the primary)
7. Jim Slattery of Kansas
8. Bob Tuke of Tennessee

I think the Dems will ultimately win at least two of these eight contests, but it is too early for me tell which two. The only really safe Republicans I see are:

1. Mike Enzi of Wyoming
2. John Barrasso of Wyoming
3. Jeff Sessions of Alabama
4. Thad Cochran of Mississippi
5. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

So, my prediction is that the Dems will pick up 12 Senate seats. They'll tell Lieberman to caucus with the stump Republican caucus, and the breakdown will be:

61 Democrats, plus Bernie Sanders
38 Republicans, plus Joe Lieberman

And the best part? No John Cornyn.

I think Obama should use the same whistle-stop train strategy he used in Pennsylvania during the general election. Maybe, take the train from St. Louis to San Francisco and make a bunch of stops along the way. He also should makes trips down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Expand the map. And it looks like a trip or two to Alaska is a good idea, too.

Marriage Equality in California!

The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

The justices' 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march.

The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

With the ruling, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

"What happens in California, either way, will have a huge impact around the nation. It will set the tone," said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California.

California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners the same legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support. It's therefore unclear what additional relief state lawmakers could offer short of marriage if the court renders the existing ban unconstitutional.

A coalition of religious and social conservative groups is attempting to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine California's current laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution.

The Secretary of State is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signature to qualify the marriage amendment, similar to ones enacted in 26 other states.

The effort to turn Iran into the latest incarnation of Nazi Germany is deeply dishonest and depressing. For some people, anyone that makes Israel uncomfortable is a de facto Nazi. Iran has not fought a war of territorial expansion in centuries. I can't even think of an example in the last 500 years. What's more, Israel is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. Iran has no nuclear weapons. And, if they did have them, they'd be no more likely to explode one in Israel than Pakistan is today. If Pakistan were to attack Israel with nuclear weapons there would be no need for America to 'obliterate' them because Israel would do the job first.

Iran has its faults. So did the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union never used its nuclear weapons. And, unlike the Soviet Union, Iran has no territorial ambitions. Their support of Hezbollah is as much about strengthening their Shi'a brethren in Lebanon's internecine political fights as it is about harassing Israelis. And their alleged support of Hamas is about having street cred as one of the few Islamic countries willing to continue the fight post Camp David.

I don't expect Israelis to turn a passive eye to activities that threaten and sometimes kill their citizens. Israelis are rightly angered by both Iran's actions and their irresponsible rhetoric. But Iran poses a low-level threat, not an existential one. The Iranians are not suicidal.

Moreover, it pays to remember that even Nixon and Kissinger met repeatedly with our communist adversaries in China, North Vietnam, and the Soviet Union. They talked to the Soviet ambassador almost daily. And that is really what this debate is about. Do we talk to our enemies or do we just try to kill them?

When President Bush goes before the Knesset and compares Democrats to Nazi appeasers, he's crossing a line. And for Joe Lieberman to issue this statement is just appalling.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) issued the following statement in response to President Bush’s statement to the Israel Knesset this morning:

“President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and that holds that—if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers—they would cease to threaten us. It is critical to our national security that our commander-in-chief is able to distinguish between America’s friends and America’s enemies, and not confuse the two.”

What does Joe want to do? Kill all the Iranians? Kill all the Lebanese? Kill all the Gazans? That kind of exterminationist thinking is a lot closer to NaziThink than Joe would like to admit. But it's implicit in his logic. And why does Joe Lieberman say that these groups threaten 'us'? Has Hezbollah attacked America, or attacked Americans in the last twenty years? Has Hamas, ever?

You want to know what has made Israel safer than anything else in its history? The peace treaties that Carter hammered out with Egypt and Clinton hammered out with Jordan. That was accomplished by talking, not fighting. Israel no longer faces any credible threat of land invasion, and they have the last two Democratic presidents to thank for it. Presidents Reagan and Bush encouraged two disastrous invasions of Lebanon. That's the kind of terrible advice Israel has received from Republican leaders that are supposed to be strong on terrorism. Prior to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, suicide bombing was almost unheard of in the Islamic world, and Iran's influence was almost completely contained within their own borders.

Comparing Iran to Nazi Germany is a grave insult to our intelligence. Even our Secretaries of Defense and State recognize the necessity and advisability of engaging Iran. Is it any wonder why the Democrats kicked Joe Lieberman out of the party? I don't know what it would take to convince him that his policies make Israel less secure. History is so stark and decisive on the matter, that I suppose Lieberman just doesn't read it.

I ask, only because this is a phrase I think we are likely to hear a lot in the coming months from our good friends on the right. Friends like Kathleen Parker who, in her infinite wisdom, has decided that Obama may very well lose the election because he isn't a "full blooded American" like Hillary Clinton or John McCain, and doesn't understand what full blooded Americans know in their deeply American gut. What's a full blooded American, you ask? And how do you know if your birthright qualifies you for that noble and superior status? Good questions. Maybe I should let Kathleen speak for herself on those points:

I've noticed this new common acronym that keeps getting repeated on Hillblogs: WWTSBJQ. Presumably, this stands for 'Why Won't the Stupid B*tch Just Quit'. Today, it's in use to suggest that John Edwards is part of a network of 'boiz' that are conspiring to push Clinton out of the race before all the people get to vote. I guess I'm part of that network, and so is Markos and John Aravosis, and a bunch of other male pro-Obama bloggers.

I'll let others speak for themselves, but I just want to say a few words about my own feelings. For me, the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman is a plus. For a long time when it looked quite likely that she would be the nominee, I consoled myself with the fact that she would be an inspiration to billions of little girls all over the world. Just today, when I was doing analysis of all the House Races, I took a special interest in the women I identified that have enough money to compete. And, even though both Kay Hagan and Jeanne Shaheen are too 'New Democrat' centrist for my tastes, I'm willing to overlook that because I think the Senate desperately needs more female voices (especially the Judiciary Committee). So, while I have a tremendous feeling of satisfaction that Democrats rejected a restoration of the Clintons, I am saddened that so many of her female supporters are feeling such a profound feeling of loss. And, on this blog at least, I've maintained a basically zero tolerance policy for anyone calling Clinton gender-based epithets or otherwise negatively referring to her gender.

My opposition to Hillary Clinton has had nothing to do with her gender. I would have been an even harsher critic of her husband, had he been constitutionally permitted to run for a third-term, and done so. For me, the Clintons are largely responsible for the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. Their brand of DLC politics effectively killed off the Democratic Party in the South, and did real damage to the party in the Mountain West. The only places where Clintonism worked were in the (predominately Northern) affluent suburbs. They also ran the DNC in a totally incompetent manner, and saw their liberal and black supporters (the activist base) as a liability that had to be hidden from view.

I also resented having to defend Bill Clinton from impeachment charges. He didn't deserve to get impeached, but we didn't deserve to have to defend him against those charges.

Finally, the Clinton's foreign policy was not to my liking and, in many important ways, laid predicates for the neo-conservative hijacking that followed in the Bush administration. Briefly, relentless eastward NATO expansion set the path for renewed tensions with Russia. Misinformation used to sustain the sanction regime on Iraq, was then twisted to justify the war by Bush. Going into Kosovo without a UN resolution made it much easier to go into Iraq without one.

During the Bush years, while Al Gore and Jimmy Carter were speaking out, Bill Clinton was touring the world with Poppy Bush, while Hillary Clinton was voting for the war and the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. There are so many reasons to oppose the Clintons politically, including the generally pro-war tilt of her official supporters and advisers, that it really shouldn't be necessary to spell them all out. But I have spelled them out in a brief, cursory way, to make the point that my opposition is based on a wide array of considerations. And these considerations informed my opinion long before the campaign actually started.

I know that most of the serious Clinton supporters have the opinion that it is Barack Obama that injected race into the campaign. We'll just have to disagree about that. But what I find somewhat curious is the high level of perceived misogyny that HillBloggers attribute to the Obama campaign and to Obama supporters. I know I've seen the comments and the t-shirts, and there is no question that there is a lot of misogyny and a lot of it gets directed at Clinton. But not from me. And not from any of the well known bloggers that I read. And not from Obama, or his staffers, or any of the people that have endorsed him or speak for him. There is certainly no misogyny from John Edwards, or John Kerry, or Bill Richardson.

A lot of people are frustrated that Clinton is still in the race because it costs money and time to campaign against her. Barack Obama does not really need to be campaigning in Puerto Rico and Kentucky right now. And he really doesn't need the Clintons telling voters in West Virginia that he is an elitist. It's not helpful for the general campaign. So, sometimes people lose their temper and say nasty things. Sometimes people wonder why she won't drop out because she is hurting the party and hurting Obama. I mean, seriously, do you think it helped us in any way in our quest to defeat John McCain to have our nominee blown out in West Virginia last night?

And, a last point. I recently made a list of who I'd like to see as Obama's running mate, and a woman topped the list. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has executive experience, she's smart, she's talented, and she has had success attracting more conservative voters without betraying progressive principles. As far as I know, every one of the so-called 'Boiz' agrees with me that Gov. Sebelius deserves to be on any short-list for vice-president. And I think we'd all agree that she'd make a fantastic president in 2016, or if the need should arise before then.

For the past 7+ years, my conservative father’s stock snarky answer to anything that I pointed out about the Bush administration or the rubber stamp republican Congress was met with a comment to the effect of “oh, don’t you worry, President Hillary will come in and make everything all better”. I always told him that (besides the fact that he was dodging the issue to begin with) there was no way that she would be elected President.

A couple of years ago, when he made that comment to me, my reply was that she wouldn’t even get the nomination - and we even bet a dinner on it. He could only ask who would possibly get the nomination over her. Now, this diary isn’t about Hillary Clinton - it just happens that her Presidential campaign is the product of a Democratic Party mindset that has resulted in oh-so-narrow losses (for the most part) and even some “key victories” in certain ever-shrinking lists of “swing states”.

Turn on your tee-vee if you want to see John Edwards endorse Barack Obama in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

To get a sense for how vulnerable the Republican House members are, I looked at every Republican-held seat in the country that has a Partisan Voting Index (PVI) of R+10 or less. The seat the Republicans lost in Mississippi last night has a PVI of R+10. I also added in a few seats that are more Republican than R+10 but which have very well funded Democrats in the race.

As you'll see there are over seventy-five potentially competitive seats, and another thirty or so that could be competitive if the Dems find a candidate, or if the candidate improves their fundraising, or if the DCCC can devote enough money to make up for a financial disadvantage.

Simply put, the Republicans should be absolutely terrified. More than a third of their seats are in jeopardy.

You can look up the the cash-on-hand for every candidate here. I used the following format for each seat:

Congressional District (CD), Partisan Voting Index (PVI), Incumbent/Open Seat, Challenger, Challenger's Cash on Hand (COH). Enjoy.

Torture? We don't torture. Sometimes our enhanced, but perfectly legal, interrogation techniques may result in death or severe mental disorders, but remember we are dealing with ruthless terrorists who will come into your bedrooms at 3:00 am and behead you and your children with a rusty butcher's knife without a second thought. So, once in while, to quote a famous American Secretary of Defense, in order to protect us over here, stuff happens over there (h/t to Digby):

The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained previously withheld documents from the Defense Department, including internal investigations into the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. Uncensored documents released as a result of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit shed light on the deaths of detainees in Iraq and internal disagreement within the military over harsh interrogation practices used at Guantánamo Bay.

"These documents provide further evidence that the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad was not aberrational, but was widespread and systemic," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "They only underscore the need for an independent investigation into high-level responsibility for prisoner abuse."

One of the documents released to the ACLU is a list of at least four prisoner deaths that were the subject of Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) investigations. The NCIS document contains new information about the deaths of some of these prisoners, including details about Farhad Mohamed, who had contusions under his eyes and the bottom of his chin, a swollen nose, cuts and large bumps on his forehead when he died in Mosul in 2004. The document also includes details about Naem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Iraqi man who was strangled to death at the Whitehorse detainment facility in Nasiriyah in June 2003; the shooting death of Hemdan El Gashame in Nasiriyah in March 2003; and the death of Manadel Jamadi during an interrogation after his head was beaten with a stove at Abu Ghraib in November 2003. [...]

Another document obtained by the ACLU provides further context to objections raised by the Army's Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) about the use of harsh interrogation methods applied on Guantánamo prisoners. The memo prepared for CITF commander Brittain Mallow appears to have been drafted for September 2002, and identifies "unacceptable methods" involving "threats," "discomfort," and "sensory deprivation," while also providing guidance to CITF agents on permissible interrogation methods for use on detainees. The memo suggests that CITF expressed disapproval of abusive methods used at Guantánamo as far back as September 2002. In December 2002, Mallow instructed his unit not to participate in "any questionable" interrogation techniques at the facility.

Beaten with a stove? Strangled to death? Shot? Bashed in skull? All while in the hands of American authorities. All likely to never be investigated, or the perpetrators punished. And by perpetrators I include the folks who sat in that White House conference room and signed off on these "enhanced interrogation techniques" with nary a discouraging word. The ultimate Star Chamber operating out of one of America's iconic symbols and the literal home of America's Presidents since John Adams. Something tells me that even the President who signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts would look askance at what the Executive branch of our national government has become in the first decade of the 21st Century.

If we don't investigate the full perfidy and horror of the Bush years, ladies and gents, all this will happen again. Because history repeats itself, especially when it is the history of evil deeds perpetrated in secret by one's own government. Only next time it might not be some "swarthy skinned foreigner" whose fate too many Americans could care less about. Next time it could be you. Just ask the Argentinians. Or the Russians. Or the victims of Mao's cultural revolution. A precedent has been established. What we do about it in the future will make all the difference to whether we remain a "free country" or one that allows our government to take any action, commit any crime, in the interests of "national security."

Will we face the fact that we have been under the rule of war criminals? Will we investigate and expose their crimes or will we hide from the awful truth of what was done in our names? The onus is on us now. Nothing can be done to give the victims of Bush's security state their lives back, or erase the horrible memories of those who are still alive, but forever changed. But we can choose to open up this wound to our national honor, force each of us to consider its horrific inhumanity, and take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again in our and our children's lifetimes. We know that some individuals in our government saw what was happening and refused to accept it or participate in it. So we know that there were officials who objected to the path of immorality they saw the Bush administration eagerly walk down. Yet their voices have been silenced. Let's not let our voices stay silent now that evidence of these horrors is finally seeing the light of day.

The choice is ours. Let your Congressional representatives know that you don't want the Bush crimes swept under the rug come 2009. Because if you don't act, you can be assured they won't.

Right up front, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Democratic Presidential primary.

No, what this is about is a rigged playing field when it comes to our elections, and how this strategy of “playing defense” - being reactive to the latest republican election crime and looking forward all while the republicans are already on to the next way to disenfranchise millions of voters who are highly unlikely to vote for them in the first place.