Admittedly, it was like watching a Howitzer take on a Yugo.

But MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews expert dismantling of President Bush's transparent rhetoric about appeasing terrorists -- using conservative radio knucklehead Kevin James as his pitiful example -- was a sterling model of how good punditry can actually strike at the heart of a political issue.

Matthews kept asking James what Neville Chamberlain actually did wrong in World War II -- in other words, asking why "appeasement," as referenced by Bush in Israel recently, actually was bad. James kept talking and saying nothing, eventually forced to admit that he didn't really know anything about appeasement, other than the fact that it sounds really bad when you attach the term to liberals.

Fans know Matthews is quite the armchair historian, and he eventually made his real point; appeasement is giving up land and/or advantage to enemies in the naive hope they will settle for what you give them -- kinda like, I don't know, paying militias in Iraq to stop killing Americans.  It is NOT talking to your enemies, which even Israel does.