If one of those classic blunders is never to get involved in a land war in Asia, then only slightly less known is this: Never COMPARE your own land war to a land war in Asia.
I mean, lord almighty, George, this is just basic debating tactics. You avoid negative associations. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to sell the notion that, if we pull out of Iraq, then people will die as happened in Vietnam. (Let us even put aside that people are already dying, and will continue to do so whether we’re there or not, the only difference being that if we’re there then we’re the ones dying. And if you’d been so dámņëd concerned about people’s lives, maybe you’d actually have paid attention to everybody who was trying to point out how screwed up Iraq was going to become BEFORE you got us there.)
The problem is that if you mention Iraq and Vietnam in the same breath, the details and shadings of your point will fall away. Days later, all that most people are going to remember is Iraq being equated with Vietnam. And that is a Very Bad Thing as far as you’re concerned. You don’t WANT people making that association. It’s the very association that you and your people have been trying to AVOID people making.
And now you’ve sent them right to it.
In the words of a famous Ghostbuster when faced with his partner’s faulty strategy that unleashed a gigantic monster upon them: “Good thinking, Ray.”
PAD
• 
Well, in addition to that, folks have already been comparing this to the Vietnam War before he did. Before this war started, there was room for comparison.
Regardless, comparing this to the Vietnam War is nothing but a losing maneuver for Bushco.
Hopefully they’ll keep up the good work in this department.
“Maybe you’d actually have paid attention to everybody who was trying to point out how screwed up Iraq was going to become BEFORE you got us there.”
Yeah, like maybe his dad.
Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!
Not just a Vietnam comparison. Bush also made a Graham Greene QUIET AMERICAN comparison. Wrongly, of course. Good article at Editor & Publisher about it.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003629456
I have the feeling if someone asked Bush: ‘Are you a God?’ he would say yes.
[b]I have the feeling if someone asked Bush: ‘Are you a God?’ he would say yes. [/b]
Nah, just God’s chosen one to bring christianity to the whole wide world, whether they want to or not. Which is scary enough.
By which you mean, the version of Christianity if you only read the Bible up to Joshua.
By which you mean, the version of Christianity if you only read the Bible up to Joshua.
By which you mean, the version of Christianity if you only read the Bible up to Joshua.
By which you mean, the version of Christianity if you only read the Bible up to Joshua.
NEWSFLASH: Embattled US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20459457/
With Karl Rove resigning earlier this month, Gonzales was the last of Bush’s closest friends to come with him to the White House from Texas.
This is gonna totally overshadow Bush’s comparison of Iraq War 2: Electric Boogaloo to Vietnam. Plus who his replacement is, confirmation hearings, etc.:
Either Bush picks a “controversial” replacement that the Democrats hate and the Republicans love–thus shifting political focus on that given the Dems difficulties with Iraq.
Or Bush picks a consensus choice, ala John Roberts (at least when nominated), that blunts some of the Democrats criticism and builds up the Republicans reputation.
— Ken from Chicago
He IS a big Twinkie.
He IS a big Twinkie.
He IS a big Twinkie.
He IS a big Twinkie.
You MUST remember at the beginning of the Gulf War, under the ‘senior’ Bush, that the then vice president, Dan Quayle, referred to Iraq as NOT another Vietnam…because Vietnam was all jungle. The middle east is all dessert.
Now while I ‘want’ to be a Republican, to maintain the statis quo for my little girl, President Bush is making that a VERY hard thing to do, with all of the blunders. Maybe he read too many Peter David STAR TREK books where Kirk said/thought ‘I’m the Captain, I can’t afford to waffle my decisions because then my crew would lose confidence in me.’ Well, GUESS what?! America is NOT a Starship, and James Kirk was NEVER a president! Things need to get better!!!
Well of course there’s a difference between Vietnam and Iraq.
Bush went to Iraq.
David
Hmmm. Bush’s comparison seems stupid, but it is not. He is no longer bothering to talk to the American people. He only cares about his base. The same people that believe that Democrats and liberals lost us Vietnam. The same people that “trust” Fox News.
PAD,
I’m a Bush Fan/Fundy and I can’t fault your point. Nicely made. What was he thinking. I can’t even blame his people. I cannot believe that someone told his to say this. No one is this ignorant. It has to be something said on the fly and everyone on his staff had to slap their foreheads at the same time.
Dictor Cyse—
Bush doesn’t read.
Not a blunder, but a calculated ploy.
It goes like this. Iraq is lost. Sooner or later we will pull out and it will decay into a full blown civil war. This will end with either a Strongman Shiite government, or a partitioned country of three autonomous regions. It will be bloody and awful and nothing will stop it.
But G W Bush will not pull out. He will keep coming up with shams like the surge to push our presence in Iraq until he leaves office (six more months, six more months, etc…).
He knows the next President will withdraw. He is not trying to salvage Iraq, he is trying to salvage his “legacy”. Now here is where he is laying the ground work. When we do leave Iraq and chaos follows, he will be sitting there as the elder statesman ex-President saying; “I told you it was just like Vietnam, if we only had the courage to stay, as we did when I was leading, we could have had victory. But just like Vietnam, we left and it became a failure.”
Basically he is recasting Iraq and Vietnam, not as strategic and political blunders. But as a failure of not seeing it through.
This is all he has left, take a failed Presidency and a one of our greatest foriegn policy blunders and have history see it as a great mission that others lost.
The Vietnam reference is not as simple or foolish as it seems. Just more of the same political theater that is all this White House has. This is probably Karl Rove’s parting gift to his beloved leader.
I will also say that there are enough right wing ideologues and think-tank talking heads to keep this great lie going for some time.
Not a blunder, but a calculated ploy.
And one can hope it’s a miscalculated ploy as well, for the reasons you state: it’s merely Bush trying to rewrite his legacy, a legacy that was stamped as soon as he decided to take us to Iraq.
In the long run, we can only hope people see through the smokescreen.
I kinda got the same vibe on this as Ed. This speech, along with some others from the past, pretty much set up the Bush supporters to blame the ultimate failure of this venture on the Democrat controlled congress and on Bush’s, presumably Democrat, successors.
Yeah, they’d have done that anyhow, but this gives them a better platform to launch the attack from later. They’ll play it as Bush the Great knowing and sharing the warnings of the folly of not following through and completing the mission. It was just not his fault because his warnings/sage wisdom was ultimately ignored by the foolish, anti-American and defeatist Democrats and moderates.
No one with even so much as half a brain will buy it, so it’s pretty much guaranteed that Bush supporters will eat it up like famine victims at a Golden Corral Buffet.
Dictor Cyse SEZ:
“You MUST remember at the beginning of the Gulf War, under the ‘senior’ Bush, that the then vice president, Dan Quayle, referred to Iraq as NOT another Vietnam…because Vietnam was all jungle. The middle east is all dessert.
Now while I ‘want’ to be a Republican, to maintain the statis quo for my little girl, President Bush is making that a VERY hard thing to do, with all of the blunders. Maybe he read too many Peter David STAR TREK books where Kirk said/thought ‘I’m the Captain, I can’t afford to waffle my decisions because then my crew would lose confidence in me.’ Well, GUESS what?! America is NOT a Starship, and James Kirk was NEVER a president! Things need to get better!!!”
According to Salt Lake Tribune Political Cartoonist Pat Bagley…. Well, that Star Trek Comparison may not be off the mark. See Yesterday’s Cartoon at:
http://extras.sltrib.com/bagley/
Oh, and if this bit from PAD sounds familiar:
The problem is that if you mention Iraq and Vietnam in the same breath, the details and shadings of your point will fall away. Days later, all that most people are going to remember is Iraq being equated with Vietnam.
It’s because it’s equally applicable several years ago:
“The problem is that if you mention Saddam and 9/11 in the same breath, the details and shadings of your point will fall away. Days later, all that most people are going to remember is Saddam being responsible for 9/11.”
You’re all missing the major point, Bush belongs the school of thought (that is, if it could be said that he thinks at all) that believes that if the democratic-controlled congress hadn’t cut off fundings for the Vietnam War and if we had just stayed in there a little longer, we would have had “victory”. Bush isn’t just running out the clock, he’s laying the foundations for future republicans to blame the total FUBAR that is Iraq on the democrats.
As for Gonzo, ten bucks says Bush makes a recess appointment to replace him. After all, it’s not like he’s going to base on his choice for the new AG on anything other that political hackery and how well the candidate can imitate Smithers.
Why would anyone think he would start hiring on the basis of competence and integrity this late in the game?
Den, it probably won’t be a recess appointment. It appears that Bush and Harry Reid made a deal. No recess appointments in exchange for Reid letting some of the judicial nominations go up for a vote. Gonzo’s successor is going to be either a former Senator or a nonentity ala Chief Justice Roberts.
Bush is pulling a George Costanza. He now is doing the opposite of what he used to think was best. It can’t hurt…
Bush has nothing to lose. He’s already lost the country. Those who are still with him, would stick by him even if Bush was video taped helping Vick electrocute dogs.
I find it interesting that this bombshell was dropped at the same time as Scooter Libby’s commutation: That is, just as THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT begin a two-week hiatus.
Anyone else think “Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. . . . “
Sasha..nice thought..but Bill Maher is back, and Obermann is back from vacation..
Sasha..nice thought..but Bill Maher is back, and Obermann is back from vacation..
Mayhap, but I don’t know if either one of those guys can affect the popular culture (and thus a plurality of the population) quite as much as the jesters of Comedy Central. Obermann’s criticism may sting, but Stewart and Colbert’s satire sticks.
What’s a deal with Bush worth these days?
Even if it isn’t a recess appointment, you know it’ll be just another incompetent partisan hack anyway.
Mayhap, but I don’t know if either one of those guys can affect the popular culture (and thus a plurality of the population) quite as much as the jesters of Comedy Central.
Actually, what is interesting is that there was a special episode of Countdown last night… yes, on Sunday night… on NBC… yes, NBC, not MSNBC, before or after NBC’s Sunday Night Football (depending on which coast you live on).
So, Olbermann got to reach a record audience for his show last night.
Again, timing being what it is, he didn’t get to comment on Gonzo’s retirement. More coincidence? 🙂
“So, Olbermann got to reach a record audience for his show last night.”
I’ll believe that when the ratings come in. I’ve got nothing against Olbermann, but the show wasn’t that hyped, it was a Sunday broadcast, the MSNBC hyping that was done aired during his regular show while he was on vacation and the Countdown Special itself wasn’t anywhere close to the best Countdown that he’s ever done.
He better pray for everything he’s worth that the ratings don’t come back covered in flop sweat.
Bush’s *real&* problem with his analogy is that, due to his complete lack of historical perspective (and of first-hand knowledge), he’s pointing at the wrong country in SE Asia.
The “killing fitles” were in Cambodia, courtesy of the Khmer Rouge.
Whose ascension to power was the result of the deposition of Prince Sihanouk.
In which the US connived.
The slaughter in Cambodia was stopped, and the process if installation of a more moderate government there was due to a foreign invasion.
By the Evil Commie Government That Took Power Because We Cut And Ran in Viet Nam.
Those who do not comprehend history are doomed to find newer and better ways to f**k up and do the same things.
>Those who do not comprehend history are doomed to find newer and better ways to f**k up and do the same things.
In ’54, 1854 that is, Commodore Perry didn’t just knock on the door at Yokohama, he knocked the door down and informed the Japanese they were now going to join the rest of the world whether they wanted to or not. Enough of this isolationist thing.
Students of history may remember this sort of came back to bite the Americans in ’41. 1941, that is.
Yet, 66 years after that rather infamous lesson there’s no sign the U.S. has learned not to stick its nose in other peoples’ affairs. Thus proving you are quite correct, more’s the pity.
I’ll believe that when the ratings come in.
Perhaps I should have said ‘potential record audience’, but the fact remains that his show was on network tv vs his usual spot on cable.
Or, in my case, MSNBC was recently moved from expanded basic cable to digital cable, thus an even smaller audience than before. Not to mention the NFL being involved along with the nightly news.
All those factors mean a much larger than usual audience had the chance to tune in.
RE: bush & history – today’s Oliphant cartoon
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20070828/spo070828.gif
As some of the posters have pointed out, this is Bush throwing out red meat to the conservatives who’ve convinced themselves the traitorous left stabbed the military in the back thirty five years ago, pulling us out of Vietnam when victory would have been a slam-dunk. One of our local columnists has already made the same comparison for Iraq.
It all ties in with the right-wing theme that if we lose it won’t be because of the insurgents, it’s because we “lacked the will” to keep fighting (what one writer described as the Green Lantern theory of military power). Bush and the neocons are absolved of their stupidity, everything is the fault of the liberals and the traitorous mainstream media, just like ‘nam.
David Neiwert’s Orcinus blog has much to say about the fascist forerunners of this idea in pre-WWII Germany.
As some of the posters have pointed out, this is Bush throwing out red meat to the conservatives who’ve convinced themselves the traitorous left stabbed the military in the back thirty five years ago, pulling us out of Vietnam when victory would have been a slam-dunk. One of our local columnists has already made the same comparison for Iraq.
It all ties in with the right-wing theme that if we lose it won’t be because of the insurgents, it’s because we “lacked the will” to keep fighting (what one writer described as the Green Lantern theory of military power). Bush and the neocons are absolved of their stupidity, everything is the fault of the liberals and the traitorous mainstream media, just like ‘nam.
David Neiwert’s Orcinus blog has much to say about the fascist forerunners of this idea in pre-WWII Germany.
Bush *is* one of the classic blunders… of the American people.
Of course, Bush will say this. And ignore the countless times that he, himself, stabbed the Iraqui people in the back, i.e., reneging on a deal that would have placed Bremer and Khalilzad in charge in favor of Bremer alone, the lack of planning for the transition of power, the indifference to the continued interruption of power, the slowness in replacing Iraq’s judicial, economic and social systems, etc.
The American people have to realize that it was the Bush administration and the Bush Administration alone that is to blame for Iraq now. And it was most definitely the lack of will on their part—for they had NO WILL to plan and execute their plans properly.
1Pull out? That’s what Bush ’41 should have done with ‘ol Barb before Bush ’43 was conceived.
Allen Smith
You’re absolutely correct, Fraser. “The American people lack the will to win” is the talking point of the week among the bush water carriers, usually coupled with charges that the liberals in congress and the media are to blame for sapping our “will to win”. Krauthammer and several others have already used it.
This is just Bush running out the clock and sticking someone else with the mess. The classic pattern of his adult life.
It still amazes me that anyone who looked into his background in business expected his presidency to end any other way.
“Will to win?” Some folks point out that the “will to win” was utterly lacking from the Administration side from the get-go.
You know, in a perfect world, only Bush and his cronies would be stuck cleaning up the mess caused by their decision to wage war against Iraq without any real idea what the hëll they were doing.
Unfortunately, we’re all stuck cleaning up their mess, and could very well be doing so for generations. Thanks, George. Thanks a whole hëll of a lot.
I’d like to believe the American people will have learned their lesson and will never again put someone so incompetent into the White House, but I know better. Sooner or later, people will forget the Bush years and put some other idiot in the White House. I just hope it’s later and that we have some well-qualified presidents in the interim.
Of course, that will require more intelligence on the part of the voters in choosing their candidates.
Good luck with that.
Rick
Never try to con a con man, never try to kill a killer, and never steal from a thief.
If you’ve been married nine times, maybe it’s YOU (The Elizabeth Taylor Rule, as promulgated by Tim Wilson.)
Never compare you’re foul up to another foul up in effort to make your foul up seem like a work of genius.
President Bush’s statement was particularly appalling because it demonstrated how little familiarity he has with the real world. I am suspicious of his reasoning on many things, particularly the necessity and conduct of the present Iraq war, but there is the smallest bit of possibility that there is some merit in his idea that it is better to fight El Qaida there than here. (I am not convinced, but cannot completely write the possibility off.) Somehow Mr. Bush thinks he is proving his point by citing Vietnam – but he forgets something very important:
When the United States left Vietnam to its fate, neither the Vietcong, the North Vietnamese Army, nor some monolithic Communist threat followed it home, the way Mr. Bush screams El Qaida would/will/cannot be stopped from doing without his policies.
Obviously, Mr. Bush is completely ignorant of any lessons to be learned from Vietnam. He had his chance to do some on-site study of the situation a while ago, but he was too busy managing a GOP congressional campaign in Alabama to follow up on that…