I don't mean to change the subject from something truly important like who inked the panels that are going on Marvel Comic postage stamps. But Frank Rich has a good column this weekend on where we are with Iraq. Reading the whole thing at the New York Times site requires one of their TimeSelect subscriptions but I can quote these paragraphs…
It is also wrong to liken what's going on now, as Mr. Bush has, to the Tet offensive. That sloppy Vietnam analogy was first made by Mr. Rumsfeld in June 2004 to try to explain away the explosive rise in the war's violence at that time. It made a little more sense then, since both the administration and the American public were still being startled by the persistence of the Iraq insurgency, much as the Johnson administration and Walter Cronkite were by the Viet Cong's tenacity in 1968. Before Tet, as Stanley Karnow's history, Vietnam, reminds us, public approval of L.B.J.'s conduct of the war still stood at 40 percent, yet to hit rock bottom.
Where we are in Iraq today is not 1968 but 1971, after the bottom had fallen out, Johnson had abdicated and America had completely turned on Vietnam. At that point, approval of Richard Nixon's handling of the war was at 34 percent, comparable to Mr. Bush's current 30. The percentage of Americans who thought the Vietnam War was "morally wrong" stood at 51, comparable to the 58 percent who now think the Iraq war was a mistake. Many other Vietnam developments in 1971 have their counterparts in 2006: the leaking of classified Pentagon reports revealing inept and duplicitous war policy, White House demonization of the press, the joining of moderate Republican senators with Democrats to press for a specific date for American withdrawal.
That's why it seemed particularly absurd when, in his interview with Mr. Stephanopoulos last weekend, Mr. Bush said that "the fundamental question" Americans must answer is "should we stay?" They've been answering that question loud and clear for more than a year now.
Rich seems to think that right after the election, Bush and Company will not be so worried about seeming weak or appearing to reverse course and will hurry up the withdrawal from Iraq. The idea is that they will do everything they can to make it a non-issue before this nation (the U.S. of A.) elects its next president. I'm not sure why he (or anyone) thinks that but it's probably a nicer prediction than the one that has America making an all-out blitz to quickly "win" — in whatever way could be spun as a victory.