The Endless War

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 24, 2007 7:28 AM

There's no escape: Along with hippies, drugs, poverty programs and classic rock, it seems that my generation--and the country--is destined to keep debating Vietnam till the end of our days.

President Bush kicked it off again on Wednesday, but he's only the latest to join the party. We debated Vietnam during the '76 campaign, after which Carter granted amnesty to draft dodgers. Reagan in '80 ran against the sort of military weakness exemplified by Vietnam as well as the Iranian hostage crisis. In '88 it was Dan Quayle's National Guard service. In '92 it was Bill Clinton's how-to-avoid-the-draft-while-remaining-politically-viable letter. In '00 the issue was how W. got into the Guard and whether he went AWOL. And in '04 we relived the whole thing again with Kerry and the Swift Boaters.

The White House and its allies have always dismissed invocations of Vietnam as the product of Defeatocrats and Blame-America-Firsters. Iraq was different, they said, was not a quagmire, and would not end in the same humiliating fashion. But he is taking on a national consensus that Vietnam was a mistake. Half a million American troops--more than triple the number in Iraq--couldn't win that conflict, and then, as now, public opinion had turned sharply against what was seen as a civil war. Vietnam sank LBJ and dogged Nixon, and we're arguing about it still.

Just after 3:30 yesterday, the Vietnam analogy was overtaken by what seemed to me a dramatic statement by John Warner. For the 80-year-old senator who ran the Navy during Vietnam, a reliable Republican and military hawk, to call on his president to start withdrawing troops home by Christmas may be the most significant political development on the home front since ex-Marine Jack Murtha started leading the Democrats down the antiwar road in 2005.

Warner's credentials are unassailable; no one can accuse him of cutting and running. He's just back from Iraq. He's hardly rushed to judgment. More important, he provides cover for wavering Republicans--especially those up for reelection next year--to break with the president without appearing disloyal.

John Warner hasn't committed to seeking another term in Virginia, and if he steps down, this may be the most important thing he's ever done in his life--other than marrying Elizabeth Taylor.

"Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Thursday urged President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq to send a message that the United States is running out of patience with the government in Baghdad," reports the L.A. Times.

"Warner, who has been critical of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January, said he was not ready to back a Democratic-led effort in Congress to order withdrawals. However, his blunt assessment of the Iraqi government's performance could lead to an erosion of GOP support for the president's war strategy at a crucial time . . .

"Returning from a visit to Iraq, Warner urged Bush to announce next month "the first step in a withdrawal," bringing perhaps 5,000 of the nearly 162,000 troops home by Christmas. Warner, a veteran and former Navy secretary, said it was important to show the Iraqi government 'that we mean business' and that the U.S. military commitment is not open-ended. 'We simply cannot as a nation stand and put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action which will get everybody's attention,' Warner said at a Capitol Hill news conference."

Says Politico: "Vulnerable Republicans have been desperately searching for middle ground on Iraq, and Sen. John Warner, the senior senator from Virginia, may have just given them political cover."

At National Review, Pete Hegseth seconds Bush's Vietnam analogy:

"Historical comparisons, like the Vietnam imagery invoked by the president, are a necessary part of the public case for completing the mission in Iraq. Americans -- and especially Vietnam veterans -- remember the aftermath of defeat in Vietnam: a crippled American image, shunned American GIs, and genocide.

"So, for good reason, nobody wants to relieve Vietnam; and Americans need to be reminded that our 'defeat' in Iraq would have the same result, but with even weightier consequences, as radical Islamists with overt global ambitions would be emboldened by victory to widen their campaign."

Radio commentator Cenk Uygur can hardly believe it:

"Maybe Karl Rove was Bush's brain. He leaves the building and all of a sudden the White House is using terrible talking points. The president gave a speech comparing Iraq to Vietnam (an analogy he had directly rejected earlier , saying the comparison he made today would send 'the wrong message to our troops' and 'the wrong message to the enemy.') Iraq is like Vietnam? That's the worst marketing strategy I've ever heard. Why don't they try this one next -- If You Liked Vietnam, You'll Love Iraq.Bush is no student of history, so I don't know if he knows this, but we lost Vietnam. And more importantly, there was no hope of winning. If Bush is trying to say we should have stayed in Vietnam, that dog will not hunt. I guarantee it.

"The jury is in on Vietnam and the two inescapable conclusions are 1) we should have never gone in (like Iraq) 2) we had to leave because we had no chance of winning (like Iraq). The one thing the Bush administration used to be good at is politics. Now, if they have also lost this ability, they're cooked."

Right Wing Nuthouse resident Rick Moran is upset with the NYT account of the president's Wednesday speech:

"In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies. . .

"I had to read that amazing passage about our pullout from Viet Nam having "few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies" several times before I could believe it. Is the Times actually trying to argue that there were no 'negative repercussions' for Thailand or Cambodia, both of them close US allies at the time? And the fact that the collective security group, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, was destroyed by our pullout from Viet Nam didn't have repercussions for the United States itself? Or that our pull out didn't damage our ability to deter the Russians?

"Our mad rush out of Viet Nam certainly emboldened the Soviet Union to meddle in Africa by using their flunkie Castro as a proxy in Angola as well as giving direct aid to groups like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the El Salvador rebels. To say that our pull out didn't have negative repercussions for the US or many of our allies is insane."

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Bush speech:

"A columnist for The New York Times wrote . . . in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: 'It's difficult to imagine,' he said, 'how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.' A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: 'Indochina without Americans: For Most a Better Life.' "

The columnist was Pulitzer Prize-winner Sydney Schanberg.

HuffPoster Marty Kaplan gives us the cultural context of Bush's stroll through history:

"There's no longer any doubt about the master narrative of the Bush administration. Their purpose is to re-litigate the 1970s. Nixon's downfall, let alone all that followed, clearly has stuck in Cheney's craw. All his New American Centurions were so scarred by the fall of Saigon and the Church Committee reforms that even Morning in the Gipper's America didn't do enough to restore the imperial executive and the American imperium. So now we watch as FISA and FOIA are dismantled, checks and balances are declared Congressional overreaching, and the bully pulpit is being used like Stalin's commissars used scissors and a paste-pot to purge and doctor the historical record.

"I'm putting my money on an attempt by GOP culure warriors to expunge disco from the national memory."

Andrew Sullivan sees the president blaming the critics:

"His speech Wednesday actually managed to shock. You might think that, in wartime, a president would acknowledge what no one denies is a terribly grim decision in front of us - whether to pursue a clearly unwinnable war in order to govern a clearly ungovernable country - or withdraw and redeploy in ways that will doubtless lead to even more bloodshed. But no. There is no gray here; no awful decision for the least worst option; not acknowledgment of his own moral culpability for such a disaster. There is instead an accusation that those who reach a different judgment about the course of the war are, in fact, enemies of the troops."

The offending passage: Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?

Meanwhile, this little problem surfaced:

"A stark assessment released Thursday by the nation's intelligence agencies depicts a paralyzed Iraqi government unable to take advantage of the security gains achieved by the thousands of extra American troops dispatched to the country this year," the NYT reports.

"The assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, casts strong doubts on the viability of the Bush administration strategy in Iraq. It gives a dim prognosis on the likelihood that Iraqi politicians can heal deep sectarian rifts before next spring, when American military commanders have said that a crunch on available troops will require reducing the United States' presence in Iraq.

But the report also implicitly criticizes proposals offered by Democrats, including several presidential candidates, who have called for a withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq by next year and for a major shift in the American approach, from manpower-intensive counterinsurgency operations to lower-profile efforts aimed at supporting Iraqi troops and carrying out quick-strike counterterrorism raids."

At the New York Sun, Ryan Sager provides a little polling perspective after Rove's charge that Hillary has the worst negatives of any White House contender ever:

"A new Rasmussen report shows that however high Hilary Clinton's negative ratings might be, Mitt Romney's are worse.

"44% of likely voters would vote against Mr. Romney, as opposed to 43% against Mrs. Clinton. The Romney-haters include 25% of Republicans who say they would definitely vote against the former Massachusetts governor. While none of this means voters couldn't change their minds over the next year-plus, it's amazing that Mr. Romney scores so high despite his low name-ID this early in the game. Only one other Republican outdoes Mrs. Clinton on this measure: Newt Gingrich."

Time investigates Rudy's 9/11 record and praises his "extraordinary grace under fire" and "intimate knowledge of emergency management." But: The evidence also shows great, gaping weaknesses. Giuliani's penchant for secrecy, his tendency to value loyalty over merit and his hyperbolic rhetoric are exactly the kinds of instincts that counterterrorism experts say the U.S. can least afford right now.

"Giuliani's limitations are in fact remarkably similar to those of another man who has led the nation into a war without end."

Pretty tough stuff.

TPM's Greg Sargent is tired of hearing about the Petraeus report:

"There is simply nothing that can get the big news orgs to stop reporting that the September progress report on Iraq is being written by General Petraeus, even though we all know it's being written by the White House. Just sit back and marvel at all the wrongness -- and at how lazy, predictable, comprehensive and dispiriting it is."

The offenders: WP, NYT, AP, CNN, Fox . . .

At the New York Press, Russ Smith tells political reporters to zip it:

"One of the more irksome themes of this summer is the complaint among those mainstream journalists who comprise what's called the 'commentariat' or 'punditocracy,' that presidential campaigns begin earlier and earlier every four years. This is not only condescending, but dishonest as well. If, in a fantasy world, the thousands of key-punchers who deride the number of polls and fund-raising totals released more than a year before the actual election, they could choose to ignore the entire process. In this scenario, no matter how desperately Mitt Romney attempts to become a household name through advertisements and attending public forums in Iowa and New Hampshire, if the media wasn't there to cover every syllable the man utters, few Americans would even know the man existed.

"The reality is that political reporters and columnists, and their editors, are thrilled with the 'Permanent Campaign,' regardless of how much they grouse about lousy hotel accommodations and mind-numbing speeches. It's a lot more fun, I imagine, than trying to decipher for readers the tiny print of a Congressional farm bill or pontificating about yet another rambling speech by Sen. Robert Byrd about the majesty of the institution he's served in since about 1895."

I would normally agree. Except this time: Imagine if we just blew off the coverage of the last eight months. We would have missed Obama getting in and raising more money than Hillary, Romney raising a small fortune, McCain's bus crashing and almost burning, the improbable rise of Rudy . . . Like it or not, a whole campaign is unfolding out there.

After my fulminations about scant media coverage of the brewing mortgage meltdown, I happened upon this David Leonhardt column in the NYT, noting that at Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearings, Sen. Paul Sarbanes "pointed out that the number of people taking out adjustable-rate mortgages soared in 2004. 'Are you concerned about the potential for a bubble in the housing market?' the senator asked Mr. Bernanke. "And specifically, does the drastic increase in the use of risky financing schemes, including interest-only and even negative amortization mortgages, concern you?"

So I checked, and the New York Times didn't use that exchange in its story at the time. Neither did The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune or USA Today. Guess it didn't seem like a big deal, huh?

How exactly is this going to win back readers?

"The Winston-Salem Journal will eliminate its daily business-news section, combine some Sunday sections and eliminate five positions to reduce costs, the Journal's president and publisher said in a letter to employees."