When the president evokes Vietnam, it gives everyone free reign to, once more, compare one disaster to another — this while the combined poll ratings of the administration and Congress are in the crapper.
The president made it OK for people to compare how both wars got started: the bad intelligence, deception and incompetence. He made it OK to compare the Gulf of Tonkin, that it was not investigated until we were knee deep in blood in ‘Nam, to the WMD that weren’t there in Iraq. He made it OK to compare how both wars were fought; soldiers doing their jobs, day in and day out, despite the worst political and military leadership ever seen. He made it OK to compare the rapidly disappearing patience of the U.S. citizens now with the lost patience we experienced during Vietnam.
When the president evoked Vietnam, he gave free reign to those who wish to note that many in the president’s circle avoided service during Vietnam, starting with the vice president. What the president should have said was, “The surge is working. We have the right general — finally — in Petraeus; we are winning on the ground.”
The problem is, had he said that, he would have then had to admit that we did not concentrate on the political and economic issues until it was too late; that despite the military success of the surge, that Iraq is not working.
I can easily imagine Hannity's reaction.
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