Friday, August 24, 2007
'In Vietnam,' Part II
A day later, I'm still astounded by the president's Vietnam War analogy. I've racked my historical-analogies-filled brain to come up with a worse comparison that the president might have floated. The only one that I could think of was: Stalingrad. ... Nothing shouts DEFEAT like Stalingrad. But I suppose the president wanted an American analogy, so he used the one analogy that shouts DEFEAT for Americans: Vietnam. ... The most viewed article at the Washington Post this morning is Jim Hoagland's 'Bush's Vietnam Blunder.' Besides conjuring up the subjects of defeat, the president's 'shaky grasp of history,' the president's own Vietnam-era military service and visions of helicopters leaving embassy roofs, President Bush's Vietnam analogy also undercuts his intellectual allies and draws attention to his own father's pronouncement that we had shaken the Vietnam syndrome. ...
OK, George Will uses the 'Weimar' word. I recently distanced myself from 'stab in the back' and other Weimar-like references. But now that the president is trying to foist responsibility for defeat and mass killings on critics, I think 'Weimar' is fair game. ... FYI: Stand by my increasingly shaky argument that we need to give the surge a chance. Will is right to say there are now two 'militant factions' in Washington that insist we're in an immediate either-or situation. ...
Update -- Is it 'racked' or 'wracked'? I'm sticking with 'racked.' ... Verified: It's 'racked.'
Update II -- Reader No. 1: 'What He Likely Meant - RE Bush on Vietnam.' ... What he likely meant and what he actually conjured up are two different things. ...
Update III -- Ah, hell. Might as well bring up Dien Bien Phu. Jon writes in: "On the strength of your recommendation, I got 'The Last Valley' for Christmas. Well, it took many weeks of reading but I finished it over the weekend. Better than I thought it would be. The first section, setting the stage and background knowledge, that was a little tough to slog through. But once the paratroopers and Legionnaires began touching down, it had me." ... I had a similar tough-to-slog-through experience. ...
A day later, I'm still astounded by the president's Vietnam War analogy. I've racked my historical-analogies-filled brain to come up with a worse comparison that the president might have floated. The only one that I could think of was: Stalingrad. ... Nothing shouts DEFEAT like Stalingrad. But I suppose the president wanted an American analogy, so he used the one analogy that shouts DEFEAT for Americans: Vietnam. ... The most viewed article at the Washington Post this morning is Jim Hoagland's 'Bush's Vietnam Blunder.' Besides conjuring up the subjects of defeat, the president's 'shaky grasp of history,' the president's own Vietnam-era military service and visions of helicopters leaving embassy roofs, President Bush's Vietnam analogy also undercuts his intellectual allies and draws attention to his own father's pronouncement that we had shaken the Vietnam syndrome. ...
OK, George Will uses the 'Weimar' word. I recently distanced myself from 'stab in the back' and other Weimar-like references. But now that the president is trying to foist responsibility for defeat and mass killings on critics, I think 'Weimar' is fair game. ... FYI: Stand by my increasingly shaky argument that we need to give the surge a chance. Will is right to say there are now two 'militant factions' in Washington that insist we're in an immediate either-or situation. ...
Update -- Is it 'racked' or 'wracked'? I'm sticking with 'racked.' ... Verified: It's 'racked.'
Update II -- Reader No. 1: 'What He Likely Meant - RE Bush on Vietnam.' ... What he likely meant and what he actually conjured up are two different things. ...
Update III -- Ah, hell. Might as well bring up Dien Bien Phu. Jon writes in: "On the strength of your recommendation, I got 'The Last Valley' for Christmas. Well, it took many weeks of reading but I finished it over the weekend. Better than I thought it would be. The first section, setting the stage and background knowledge, that was a little tough to slog through. But once the paratroopers and Legionnaires began touching down, it had me." ... I had a similar tough-to-slog-through experience. ...
