I think that based on how much traitor talk the right is throwing our way, we should step up to the plate and just let them have it with both barrels. I think we need spokesmen to say that the Bush Republicans are traitors for using the military to advance their domestic political agenda, that they started the Iraq war to put more Republican's in Congress and that the blood of America's noble servicemen are on their hands. Our soldiers are dying in Iraq to keep Republican's in Congress. It's wrong and it's immoral. Let's have a real National Security Strategy that is run by the CIA and the Pentagon professionals, not Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove.

Jacob Weisberg is out of his tree, if he thinks that the War on Terror has not been manipulated to serve the GOP agenda.

I say if the GOP comes at us with stabbed in the back we smack them back with stabbed in the back. I think it is a message the American Public would be quite receptive to in light of all their suffering under Bush. It could work very well with low knowledge voters which have been the key to GOP victories in 2000 and 2004.

McGovernites let the tragedy of Vietnam blind them to the obligations of American strength in the postwar conflict.

I smell trouble. 

Max B. Sawicky

Barbara O'Brien (Maha, from Mahablog) also reminds us that Nixon won election in 1972 due to racist language (due to tying the social programs with race) among other things, as well as interestingly that his secret plan to end the war was NEARLY COMPLETE and if the voters just gave him a little more TIME to GET OUT he'd be able to due it.

Basically that McGovern's way out would have been a disaster, Nixon's way out was realpolitik. But Nixon never promised victory. That was the revisionists and back-stab proponents.

I admit having been fairly young in 1972 (well, older than Weisberg but still not of voting age), but my memory of the McGovern Presidential campaign itself is of a series of errors that had nothing to do with opposition to the war: accepting the nomination around 3:00 a.m. (no prime time speech), the Eagleton-as-Vice-President foray, and a deficit that couldn't be made up--especially after "Peace is just around the corner." (op cit. the Belushi-as-Kissinger riff from the old SNL.)

In fact, I'd be inclined to suspect that people voted for Nixon because he "planned" to end the war, not because McGovern opposed it.

As one who was there, I think there it was a conservative tide, backlash of sorts, that swept Nixon into office, a swinging of the pendulum after the traumatic and unstable years of the sixties.
The tide was bigger than McGovern, Nixon, and all the other players. People were looking not only for a way out of Vietnam (Nixon's "secret plan" nonsense) but also for security, familiarity, and simplicity (such as Nixon's Bush-like phony toughness and over-simplification of issues) and were willing to buy into an illusion in order to have that phony peace of mind. Sounds familiar, huh? It was similar the to public mindset that put W in office.
At the moment, I think we're seeing the tide turn against Bush Republicanism, while at the same time public sentiment has turned against the war. The war is the conservative Republican's war, not the Dem's war as it was in Vietnam. There is no pretty way out of Iraq, just as there was no pretty way out of Nam. It took the election of a Republican President, Nixon, to finally get us out of Nam. For whatever historical analogies are worth, it may take a Dem Pres to get us out now, and I don't recall people holding it against Nixon that our evacuation of Nam was humiliating.
I do think the peace movement helped educate people about both wars and made it possible for people to question them. I just didn't think I'd be demonstrating against another Vietnam in my lifetime. How naive.

Why are we debating this on their terms? We're always trying to show how wrong they are in their justifications. Why aren't we talking about how deeply they (GOP and the press) botched Iraq, despite many warnings? Why aren't we talking about how bad things are despite reasonable Democratic plans (Clark, etc.)?

Screw the analogies, the GOP screwed this up and continue to ignore the realities of what is going on. You have to be absurd to continually pursue their non-strategy. That's all Lamont's victory is: a chance for a new direction, preferably one with a little accountability.

I think it’s fair to call Vietnam a "tragic misstep" within a larger Cold War

Not fair at all. It was as misbegotten an undertaking, from the beginning, as the Iraq War. 58,000 US troops dead and untold numbers of Vietnamese dead for what?

Read the history of Vietnam, and it’s hard not to be somewhat sympathetic -- within the limits of what men like McNamara knew and assumed,

Sorry, I've read about it, and I lived through it, and the folks who got us into that war were every bit as misguided as the crew who got us into Iraq. Vietman was a tragic, stupid war, just as Iraq is a tragic, stupid debacle. The two wars were not parallels in every way, but they were both enormously misguided enterprises.

As for the Replicans and their attempts to spin every failure into gold, they may be losing their magic touch.

Isn't there a moral difference between creeping -- okay, maybe slouching but also, being pulled -- one step at a time into war and hubristically attacking a country you're not at war with just because you can?

Is there any indication that the Vietnam War was fought for reasons other than to "roll back" Communist expansion, however misguided that reasoning might have been?

I think you're missing Mark's point here. There is alot of evidence that there were expressly domestic political considerations that went into the Iraq decision, namely, the desire to settle a number old scores under the cover of revenge for 9/11. I don't see any parallel in our decision to wage war in southeast Asia. If you disagree, I would like to hear your reasoning.

Other than that, I think most liberals (and most reasonable people generally) agree that our reasoning that led to Vietnam was fatally flawed from the outset. I just think that reasoning was much less cynical than the thinking that led us into Iraq.

If Ned Lamont had actually been a Governor, Annapolis Grad - US Naval officer and so on then your analogy might make some sense.

Of course there is still the even more important factor that Lamont is going to be the Jr Senator from CT not the parties nominee for President for Pete's sake.

Sheesh, do you get pleasure out of posting ridiculous nonsense on liberal Blogs or something? Is it some sort of Fraternity hazing ritual?

Well I hope so.

The Iraq war, and most U.S. influence in the Middle East, is over. Caput. Stratfor says so. Not exactly a raving radical source.

Can It Happen Here?

The author's point, I think I can fairly say, was to acknowledge that the broad isolationism of "Come Home, America" and of some McGovern supporters was in fact politically damaging to the Dems and short-sighted as policy. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, or why this equals "trouble."

The parallel today is the Republican party. They started Iraq and have control of the government, the only way any policy can change is if they want to.

Re: Nixon's tricky language -- It would benefit the Democrats if they could make the midterm and 2008 elections about who has a plan, not who has the better language.

If Weisberg subscribes to the theory that we are drifting into a situation comparable to 1974, with most of the public so bitter about lies and mismanagement of the war that they can't support the government even in legitimate aims...

Then the logical response would be for the right to stop trying to take cynical advantage of the war. Eh? And yet, even today, there is Peter King on Hardball taking this latest British terrorist "threat" (which a lot of us can't help but suspect is a big crock) repeating all the Republican talking points and tying them in to this Red Alert. Democrats are weak. The only strong Democrat is Joe Lieberman. Spying on the public is strong and weak democrats oppose it.

Again and again, instead of trying to make their failed policy work, they use it to club dissenters.

So who is to blame if Americans turn en masse in disgust against this repeated and disgusting misuse of fear tactics?

Weisberg is saying that we are the villagers that don't come running as fast, anymore, when the boy cries wolf. And somehow, that's our fault. Weisberg needs to rethink this.

Americans will instinctively prefer a president who makes aggressive mistakes to one who appears weak and indecisive.

I'd say in Bush, we have someone who does both. (Consider his timid response to the Israeli conflict and even to the home-based problem of Katrina.)

Mr.  Schmitt says

Like McGovern’s naively isolationist supporters, who didn’t appreciate the actual Communist threat, Weisberg says that Lamont supporters and other anti-war Dems "see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict."

I think it’s fair to call Vietnam a "tragic misstep" within a larger Cold War conflict, and probably fair to say that some McGovernites let the tragedy of Vietnam blind them to the obligations of American strength in the postwar conflict.

Normally my training makes me look backward.  But occasionally I'm tempted to look at the current world instead, and that's especially the case when confronted with the kind of historical analogies about which Schmitt writes.  It seems that there's a kind of time warp regarding VietNam:  except when worries about Bird Flu catch our eye a minute or two, we have little or no idea about what's going on in that country now.  It might be worthwhile to take a moment away from wondering who "lost" VietNam...those Nasty McGovernites, those nasty Democrats in 1974, and consider whether VietNam was "lost" at all.

I did a quick GoogleNews search on VietNam, looking to see if I could find information about a joint educational project in which my institution has an interest.  I found lots of interesting things.  Rather than make this post an epic.  Let me suggest that persons interested do their own Googling.  As an enticement let me provide three links.

1.  VN trade office opens in San Francisco: 

   (05-08-2006)  WASHINGTON — A Vietnamese trade office opened on Tuesday in San Francisco, California to promote co-operation and trade between Vietnamese and American businesses. Attending the opening ceremony were a delegation from the Ministry of Trade led by Deputy Trade Minister Do Nhu Dinh, Viet Nam’s Consul General in San Francisco, Tran Tuan Anh, the International Trade Director of the San Francisco Mayors’ Office, Mark Chandler, and representatives from US-based non-governmental organisations and businesses.

2. Viet Nam’s youngest conductor prepares for homeland debut:

   Viet Nam’s youngest conductor ever, 25-year-old Nguyen Anh Son, will perform in his homeland debut next month, conducting the HCM City Ballet Symphony and Orchestra (HBSO).

   On September 18, Son will conduct the HBSO’s symphony orchestra in a performance of Fantasia Utyos by Russian composer Sergy Rachmaninov.

3. AMERICAN PACIFIC UNIVERSITY Located in bustling and exciting Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, American Pacific University offers a unique concept in high     school and college education.
   
   Combining the curricula, methods and faculty from some of the United States leading educational institutions and the vision of one of Vietnam's leading educational sponsors, APU allows a student to learn English, get a High School Diploma (both American and Vietnamese) attend an American Community College, transfer to a prestigious American four-year institution, continue on for a Masters Degree and even get a Doctor Degree!.

None of this denies that the Viet Nam experience was a "Tragic Misstep".  If anything, it suggests it was even a greater tragedy.  So much waste.  So much miscalculation.  I don't believe in historical inevitability, at least not much.  I do believe that certain economic and cultural forces have a dynamic which overrides political theories based on "Godless Communism" and the "Domino Theory".  This fall Ha Noi will host a Viet Nam-US economic cooperation fair entitled "Viet Nam - potential for investment opportunities" from Nov. 6/9.  Strikes me that this makes the question of who won/lost VietNam tragically moot.

aMike

Post Scriptum:  Q.E.D.

Revisionist nonsense.

John Kerry had a military record and ran on creating two more army divisions and "getting the job done" (e.g. in Falluja).

HRC has clearly positioned herself to the right of the Republicans on foreign policy in order to avoid appearing weak.

What we need is someone like Wes Clark, who realizes how disastrous the Beinarts and the Kristols of the world are for the military. The neocons have effectively destroyed the US military with their adventure in Iraq. And while doing this, we have handed a great propagada victory to the Islamic jihadists (who represent a very real national security threat).

I agree that in 72 Joe Lunchpail voted for Nixon for just those reasons. But in 74 I've always thought he voted against the Republicans ,not particularly because of Watergate , but because of the gas lines during the preceding winter . If you visited any diner or hardware store that winter you'd hear angry comments that "the pols are able to get their gas".

BP's failure to prevent corrosion in its
North Shore Pipe Lines might elect a couple of democratic senators this fall. Of course
Rove will release oil from the strategic reserve (remember how Clinton was reviled for that)to try and overcome that.

sentiment only to lose the presidency for 3 of the next 4 terms would be a hollow victory.

Watch out for the Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc fallacy. Whatever caused Reagan to win in 80 and 84 (and I'm not sure it was his greater national security credibility), I think the issue which defeated Dukakis was more Willy Horton than anything else . And  in in Clinton's case , his notable lack of national security credibility seemed irrelevant. .

I have the heretical thought that maybe the Democrats should just stand for what they think is right however much that pains David Browder and the New Republic. ..

.

I think "tragic" does fit, if you consider tragedy a genre of theatre. The necocons were (and evidently still are) devoted to the tropes of tragedy. Not since Vietnam has there been such a setup for failure as Iraq. It would be comic if it weren't so, well, tragic. Think of it as being like a major studio Hollywood epic tragedy, a sellout by virtue of clever marketing and salesmanship, full of sensational effects, an enormous cast of very bad, over the hill actors who don't know when to quit. Parsecs of footage lying about the floor of the editing room, several near-cancellations, and now running out funds, re-worked as a great futuristic apocalyptic war flick.

I'm not making jokes. That the whole Iraq enterprise has turned so pathetic is a genuine tragedy, a real life drama with real live actors getting ripped and torn to shreds by the thousands upon ten thousands. To Bush & Cie. it's reality TV. They plan on being the last patriotic dudes left on board steering a sinking ship in their minds. They are so in their minds. They need to be snapped out of it.

But, alas, real life, we cannot and should not abandon Iraq now, not if we take anything seriously about our values as a people and nation. For better or worse, we have committed ourselves to seeing this one through, even if we were hoodwinked. We're going to have to get really humble and do what we're told to do by the present government of Iraq Bush&Cie. want us to believe they have created. Nope, Iraqis themselves put their team together and have shed a lot of blood, far more than we have, to find a way to peace. They may be able to do it, but we will have to let them do it without our manipulation, agendas, interference, etc. Anything less would be a disgraceful shirking of responsibility. I hate this war no less than anybody, but we have to take responsibility for our part in it and not turn it into our own little domestic theater production. If Iraq goes down, so do we, and if Iraq survives it will be because we finally helped them get rid of us on their own timetable.