Today's b.s. on parade, courtesy our b.s.er in chief

Call it a profile in courage.

Today, our plucky president will deliver a prowar speech to none other than the VFW; next week, another to the American Legion. I was a tad too young to appreciate Catholic John Kennedy's daring address to Southern Baptists, but I'm sure glad I'm still here, with all my adult faculties, to witness today's fine example of presidential boldness.

But back to the real world. I suppose it does take some courage for Bush to show his face anywhere these days. On the other hand, he's going well armed, chocked full of tortured historical analogies sure to please the blindly patriotic Veterans of Foreign Wars, many of whom are still blindly fighting the lost conflict that Kennedy helped get us into.

We had Vietnam won, you see -- until we were stabbed in the back by irresolute politicians at home. (This vein of argumentation is also memorable to those of you who were around in the 1930s and followed transatlantic news.) The argument is perfectly logical, as long as you don't read the actual history of the Vietnam conflict.

And that will be Bush's thrust today: Let us not countenance another stab in the back. Our boys are winning. Our boys always win. Our boys cannot lose.

Or, as Bush will put it, which comes to us in the form of prereleased text from the White House: "Our troops are seeing this progress 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 are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?"

I'm not sure who borrowed from whom. I've been hearing this ahistorical crappola on talk radio for at least a couple years, but only now is Bush bringing it sharply into focus. And the talk-radio talking point is always coupled with this insincere concern for the indigenous population, which Bush, also, will echo today: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields.'"

That thrust seems to be that although we've botched things almost beyond human comprehension -- but let's not discuss the incompetents who brought that about -- if we stay even longer, things will improve -- and at the very hands of the incompetents who screwed things up to begin with. It's the familiar, "How do you say 'f. u.' in BushSpeak?" Answer: "Trust us."

Mr. Bush will deliver this gem as well: "There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today. But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles."

What he won't specify is that at the core of his speech the ideological struggle, for now at least, is not between us and them; it's between us and us -- and that's just how he wants it.

Other than trying to hang on till January 2009, I'm not sure what Bush thinks he'll accomplish with this rhetorical falderal. But there's one thing I do know. If I were Prime Minister Maliki, I'd never go to sleep without first placing crinkled newspapers around the bed.

Because with Bush admitting "a certain level of frustration" with Iraq's leadership, and with Bush's own ambassador publicly saying how "extremely disappointing" he finds it, Maliki is starting to look a lot like Vietnam's rudely dismissed President Diem.

Comments

[Mark]

First it was not like Vietnam...
Then it was like Democratic Germany...
Then it was like Japan...

When that failed, well, at least it could be like Korea...

Now, low and behold, it is like Vietnam...only not.

One hopes this failed metaphor finally blows up in his face.

[Helen Rainier]

As a child of a WW II vet and his wife, I grew up respecting the American Legion -- my father was a member, and the VFW.

I have to say sadly, that I have no respect for them any longer. How they can receive this yellow-bellied draft dodger and treat him so respectfully is something I simply can't fathom.

They would be better off having Jane Fonda address their conventions.

BTW, I am a US Army vet, Vietnam Era (note: not Vietnam War)

[Judith]

He trots out the latest attempt to put lipstick on his pig war, catapulting the propaganda to see if this time everyone will fall in line behind him like after 9/11. There is a problem this time though. Vietnam generates nothing but negative energy full of pain for the people of this country. There is nothing noble or glorious about that war. And only a handful of people (Kristoff, Cheney, etc.) have ever argued that it could have been won if we had stayed. This attempt will also fail. Maybe he'll trot out the one war (after WWII) that we did win. Grenada.

[jeffreydj]

How dare the poster call Our President George W. Bush a draft dodger? He was no draft dodger, he was a deserter. There's a difference (I think).

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Kevin Baker's June '06 article for Harper's {Stabbed in the Back -The Past and Future of a Right Wing Myth} {http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/0081080} should be required reading for all Americans. What the neo-cons are trying to do is despicable, and if they are allowed to succeed, will truly be the end of America. I find it hard to believe that they are doing what they are doing, as do many of you, but it is deliberate and calculated. Horrifying. Notice the drumbeats growing creating the aura of "inevitability" towards war with Iran. How to stop them, with no support from the Democratic establishment and no help from the corporate press?