More impassioned pleas for Iranian appeasement from HuffPo: Cenk Uygur: If You Liked the Iraq War, You'll Love the Iran War.

Almost every sentence in Cenk's article can be refuted as entertainment, deception, or, most likely, just plain ignorance. First, let's check on Cenk's "credentials:" He's a liberal radio talk show host, formerly an entertainment lawyer. In other words, he gets paid to entertain people. Now, let's examine some of his commentary:

"If you liked gas at three dollars a gallon, you'll love it at five dollars or more." Reality: Three dollars a gallon occurred after Katrina, not Iraq. "If you liked fighting 26 million people in Iraq, you'll love fighting 68 million in Iran." Reality: At no point has the U.S. been fighting 26 million people in Iraq. Last I heard, we (meaning U.S. and Iraqi forces) were fighting 15,000-20,000 insurgents. "If you liked turning Sunni Muslims against us, you'll love turning Sunni and Shiite Muslims against us." Reality: The Sunnis -- ya know, Sadaam's posse -- already hated us. Nobody "turned" them. And, uh, most of the Iraqis are Shiite.

"Besides which, there is a very real reason why they actively don't plan for these wars." This is pure fantasy. I work among government folks, and I can assure you they plan everything down to the most microscopic level. "They don't want word of the worst case scenarios (or even realistic scenarios) leaking out and providing a disincentive to go to war." They may not want word leaking to the enemy, either. "They think if they can convince people it will be easy, everyone will go along." Golly, there's an insightful observation. Surely Mr. Cenk, as a radio entertainer, should know the value of good publicity. "They" (I assume he means the Bush administration) are in good company -- I'm pretty sure that if you go back through history and read the speeches of every wartime president, or any wartime leader in any country, you won't find much in them about the impending death and destruction.

"Why do you think every retired general is screaming at the top of their lungs to fire Rumsfeld? " This implies that Rumsfeld forced the generals into a war they didn't agree with. But Cenk failed to mention that many of those retired generals supported an Iraqi invasion ("among the retired generals who have called for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, some have emphasized that they still believe it was right for the United States to invade Iraq"); they just didn't like Rumsfeld meddling so much in the military planning (and rightfully so).

"By the way, is there anything more vile than a Republican telling you that the kids who signed up for our volunteer army knew what they were getting into, so they have no compunction about sending them into war?" Uh, yeah.. a vacuous talk radio jockey influencing public opinion, meddling in American foreign policy, and implying that American soldiers are too weak to fight, while raking in a fat paycheck for his efforts. That's way, way more vile.

"Bush is a proven liar." Lying is part of the president's job. Yes, bald-faced, outright lying. I'm convinced that the general population, growing fat on cheesburgers and dumb on Survivor, is not prepared to handle the whole truth about global politics.

I'll spare Cenk from complete embarrassment by leaving the rest as an exercise for the reader.

"As a nation we may take pride in the fact that we are soft-hearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed. We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the "ism" of appeasement." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 6, 1941