At this point, complaining about President Bush's screwups has become pretty pointless. There will be no impeachment; driving around with an "Impeach Bush/Cheney" bumper sticker is akin to driving around with an "elect Dukakis/Bentsen in '88" sticker. In other words, get over it -- it's not happening. Even with election season just around the corner, the hard reality is that we've still got 14 more months of him (19 if you count the two months until the newly elected president gets sworn in and Bush officially leaves). So we've got a solid year left of Bush continuously one-upping himself in making the worst decisions possible. Every time I hear the latest Bush policy, I think to myself "That's the worst idea I've ever heard," but then he always does himself one worse the next time. So it's hard to complain about each one, because you know the next will be that much worse.
Today, however, I find the need to say something. This isn't the worst thing ever, but it's pretty damn insulting. I'm referring to a recent Bush speech where he argued that we ought to stay in Iraq, and as his support, reasoned that we should have stayed longer in Vietnam. No wait, there's more. He gave this speech in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
There are several ways you can interpret those statements, no doubt. But personally, if I had been one of the veterans at that speech, I probably would have interpreted it thusly: "If only we had stayed in Vietnam.....more of you fine folks would be dead right now."
I'm not sure I've ever witnessed such a brashly selective view of history. First, he ignored practically every lesson to be learned from Vietnam (such as don't engage in foreign wars based on political ideology rather than an actual security threat), downplayed the whole "quagmire" possibility and charged into an ill-prepared and ill-designed war. Then, once the whole thing goes to shit, when we're stuck without any real solution, when hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost - THEN he looks at Vietnam. I'll be damned.
I'll admit, the American withdrawal from Vietnam was poorly executed, and resulted in some pretty serious problems such as destabilization and countless refugees that needed to flee the area. And yes, it does have a strong paralell to what is happening in Iraq today. And by no means am I saying we ought to be high-tailing it out of Iraq, because I have no idea what the best solution is. But for the love of Christ, is he really that ballsy to bring Vietnam out NOW and throw it in our faces as a reason to support him, after we've practically shouted VIET-FUCKING-NAM at him for years and years? Apparently, yes.
Maybe it doesn't matter at this point. Maybe, like the article says, it's just a last ditch gambit for a president with nothing to lose. I guess there's no such thing as negative-credibility. But still... I never ceased to be amazed at the depths this man is willing to sink to.
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You know, I saw this the other day and thought exactly the same fucking thing. I can't believe that he did that shit. I was just so fucking confused. Exactly like you said, Iraq is not like Vietnam in that, this time, it was totally cool to invade a foreign country without any real plans or exit strategy or nation-building goal, but it's totally like Vietnam in that we should stay longer? That's just fucking crazy! Seriously, that's crazy!
All I can think of is various scenes from The West Wing when Josh, Topy, Sam, and CJ went so fucking far out of their way to keep from having the President say something that could possibly be interpreted by someone as insulting or disrespectful. But Bush's speechwriters apparently don't mind having him deliver this message to a bunch of the people that would have been affected. Amazing.
And perhaps most remarkable of all, he doesn't mind actually delivering the message! What's going on here?
Well said guys. I'll throw in my thought in the dark at this one. Pretend we're in a locked, unlit, classified room. That will be $7 billion for classification, Mr. President. Sorry, I digress. To the inexplicable!
I think Bush assumes that the military and its veterans will always be on the War President's side.
Again it boils down to Bush believing he is the good guy, and whatever he does is good. In this case, "staying the course" is good, and some raging prick in the administration thought of this Vietnam analogy to help the heathen masses digest that tired old message in a new way.
Nevermind what happened in Vietnam, nevermind the experiences of those veterans in the live audience, nevermind the actual analogies to Vietnam (e.g., quagmire), and nevermind the present, history will show Bush correct.
I kind of wonder if at this point he's just going for the lowest approval rating in history. Like, "What outrageous and insulting thing can I say next that could plummet me into single digits?"
Of course, that couldn't happen, because for some reason there is a core group of diehards out there that will support him no matter what. Apparently their thinking is along the lines of "I judge a man based on my perceptions of him, not on his actions. And George W. Bush is one hell of a moral leader."
I loved what Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show last night when he was discussing Bush's analogies to past wars. Bush had begun his speech by telling how one morning America woke up and had been attacked. He was referring not to 9/11, but to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, and established the parallel there. So Stewart jumps on it and says something to the effect of "So in response to that attack, we go and invade....China?"
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