Honestly, it’s fine with me if luminaries like Norman Podhoretz want to base their grand analogy for leftish perfidy on Vietnam. Unless a wave of Vietnam nostalgia has swept the nation since the last time I checked, only the loopiest of hard-liners think we should have gone on throwing kids into that bloody guerilla war ad infinitum. Even Robert MacNamara finally recognized when it is time to stop digging.
Podhoretz almost certainly hangs out with the same group of ultra-hardliners whom he has known since the sixties, so he might just not realize that his diatribe accomplishes exactly the opposite of what it intends. Rather than condemning the left, for most normal people Podhoretz just underlines that once again he and a small band of crazies stand on the wrong side of a conflict that a growing majority of America recognize to be a bloody waste of men, materiel and prestige.
Tom Hilton
That’s not entirely true. He did meet a black man once. He wasn’t very happy about it, and wrote an essay to that effect.
ThymeZone
For the left to be yapping about Podhoretz makes about as much sense to me as for the right to be yapping about MOVEON.org.
Is the thing that counts a war, or the personalities behind the politics of the war? If it’s a war, then what do we care what a fool like Podhoretz says about anything?
We might say something like Markos Moulitsas did yesterday on Hardball:
KCinDC
It is a bit odd to focus on Podhoretz’s use of the Vietnam analogy when the same analogy has already been used by the president himself.
Tom Hilton
Podhoretz is advising Rudy Giuliani on foreign policy, and in the unhappy event that Crazy Rudy gets elected, Podhoretz will almost certainly have a substantial role in the administration. Sometimes the personalities and the politics can’t be separated.
clb72
If a rude add gets the troops home one moment sooner, it’s a good ad.
ThymeZone
Good lord.
Goofy and Donald team up to run the world.
KCinDC
Yes, clb72, but that’s a big if. If a rude ad makes you feel better but actually gets the troops home one moment later, it’s a bad ad.
srv
I’m thinking that GW and Podhoretz took alot of LSD, read The Quiet American from a Straussian Plato dialogue hidden-meaning context, took some more LSD, and came up with this.
Another theory I had about GW’s ridiculous Graham Greene quotes – a twist of irony so gobsmacking (could someone transate gobsmackironical into German?) – is that his speechwriter is trying to tell us “Look, I’m stuck here now, but I’m really hoping to get hired by The Onion after this stint”.
John S.
Mickey had better watch his ass.
Badtux
Believe it or not, the majority of the 27%’ers really do believe that the real cause of the 58,000 dead American military men in Vietnam wasn’t V.C. bullets, wasn’t incompetent allies more interested in pilfering U.S. military aid than in fighting the NVA, wasn’t NVA SAM’s shooting down B-52’s, the real cause of the 58,000 dead was… Jane Fonda and “leftists”.
Yessiree, as our brave Marines were on patrol, their radio blared out “Jane Fonda criticized the conduct of American soldiers in Vietnam today” and a brave Marine fell to the ground, “Sergeant, Sergeant, I’ve been hit!” “Where are you hit, son?” “Jane Fonda hurt my FEELINGS!”. “MEDIC!” “I’m sorry Sarge, but he’s a gonner. There’s nothing we can do.” “My god, man, at least apply a bandage or something!” “It’s no use, Sarge! He’s dead! He got killed by … by … JANE FONDA SAYING BAD THINGS ABOUT HIM!”
And that’s the history of the Vietnam War according to the Podman and his ilk. And they really believe this!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Zifnab
Petreaus isn’t particularly popular right now, with about a 24% approval rating if I’m not mistaken. Not that this means anything militarily, but it does mean quite a bit politically. When you’ve got one more General in a long line of Bush Generals presenting bold-faced lies to the American people, it isn’t a bad thing at all to see the bluff get called, even if its called rudely.
Very few people are going to look at the MoveOn ad and change their opinions on the war. That said, people who would normally toss up their hands at governmental incompetence will begin to see this more clearly as a case of Vietnam-style lying. People who were unfortunate enough to flip by FAUX News “Briefing with America” and dazzled by the pretty colors, will be able to open up the NYTimes and get a reality check to the face. The ad does mention a few key points that someone should be repeatedly publicizing – the way they count secterian killings and car bombs, for instance. If you don’t like Petreaus’s new nickname, at least you can agree a reader of the ad will be more informed about the report than he would be by flipping on CNN. That, in and of itself, has a great deal of value.
KCinDC
I think the content of the ad is good and something that it’s important to discuss. That’s why I dislike the way the stupid headline allows the conversation to be about whether it’s appropriate to (supposedly) call Petraeus a traitor and totally ignore everything else in the ad. I would rather have Republicans being confronted with questions about whether the numbers have been manipulated and whether they mean anything anyway rather than being given a free ride of ranting about “beyond the pale” rhetoric.
Z
The neo-con version of my favorite things (from the Sound of Music)…
Bold dreams of empire and tor’tring civilians;
Bombing, grandstanding, and spending our billions;
Young Muslim men, all tied up in string;
These are a few of my favorite things!
When the truth bites,
When the polls sting,
When I’m feeling sad,
I pretend I am brave with my favorite things,
and then I don’t feeeeel so bad!
srv
Breaking News – Bush to declare surge victorious and troops can reduce to pre-surge levels by next summer.
So, I’m confused why announcing our intentions to the terrorists is now a great idea.
Tom Hilton
Don’t forget John Kerry. Who, of course, appeared onstage with Fonda at a rally…in the fevered imaginations (and photoshopped images) of the wingnuts.
fecapult
I think the Dems in Congress have established that politeness and civility goes pretty much nowhere with this administration. Not that I’m inclined to think that MoveOn’s hissy fit was particularly clever either. It is possible to be firm, make a point, stick to it, and not be a snarky bastard all at the same time.
Zifnab
You lost me.
The Other Steve
Actually the problem was every soldier in Vietnam had to call back to Washington DC to get permission to shoot somebody.
KCinDC
I agree. But can you point to any examples where rudeness and incivility have gone anywhere with this administration?
I’m not concerned with whether the MoveOn ad was civil or not. The question is whether the headline made it more effective or less effective in accomplishing its goal of countering the Petraeus propagandafest.
ATS
No nation ever lost a war.They were always “stabbed in the back.”
Just like no one ever fails an oral exam— the teacher had it in for ’em.
ATS
Read Gore Vidal’s essay, “the Empire Strikes Back.” Vidal castrates Poddy with a tweezers.
Pb
Everyone in prison is innocent:
John Spragge
Shorter Podhoretz:
I had the neatest quips about Vietnam, but reality ratted me out. When 9/11 rolled around, I knew better than to trust that ratfink reality; the truth always lets me down. Worst of all, the truth always gets in the history books. A hundred years from now, kids in school will read what really happened, not my schtick about what happened. Unfair!
Jess
Hilarious! I’m going to be humming this all day…
TenguPhule
It torpedoed Bush’s gutting of SS real quick.
Badtux
Spragge, the truth rarely makes it into history books. For example, where is the Filipino-American War (the closest analogy to the current Iraq war) in the history books used to teach our American students? I didn’t even learn about it in college American History class! And the Filipino-American War killed about a million Filipinos (between our bullets, starvation in the concentration camps we set up, and the civil war that we set up between the Catholics and Muslims in the end in order to withdraw our own troops from combat). A million Filipino dead… vanished from American history.
The textbooks we use to teach our school children are just as expurgated as the textbooks the Japanese use to teach their school children, which conveniently omit Japanese atrocities during WWII and indeed depict WWII as a conspiracy to deny Japan its rightful place amongst nations. But nobody really cares. Because caring that our history textbooks lie to our school children would make you “un-American”. Sigh.
– Badtux the History Penguin
rachel
Yeah, but Thomas B. Reed was fat. /winger