The New York Times front-page "News Analysis" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jim Rutenberg delved into President Bush's dissatisfaction with Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his failure to bring Sunnis and Shiites together politically -- and strangely finds Bush "already facing skepticism" about the troop surge in Iraq (um, didn't that surge start some months ago?)
"It was not quite the vote of no confidence delivered by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who on Monday said Mr. Maliki should quit. But it was a striking attempt by the White House to distance itself from the Maliki government before September, when the president’s troop buildup faces an intense review on Capitol Hill.
"That timing is no coincidence. Mr. Bush is already facing skepticism within his own party over the troop buildup, and will almost certainly confront repeated attempts by Democrats to force an end to the war. So he seems to be laying the groundwork for a new message, one that says, 'We're doing our job in Iraq; don't blame us if the Iraqis aren't doing theirs.'"
Given that the troop built-up has been ongoing for several months (with results promising enough to garner praise from anti-war Democratic senators Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton), isn't "already facing skepticism" a pretty stale and slanted point to be making now?
Here's the Times's reaction to the text of a speech Bush is to deliver Wednesday:
"In the text, Mr. Bush also links withdrawal from Vietnam to the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and asserts that the American pullout caused pain and suffering for millions, saying, 'Whatever your position in that debate, 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.'"
Yet after outlining for years the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam in order to criticize the war, the Times suddenly finds it ridiculous when Bush makes a similar comparison in defense of the war.
"Those assertions are already being criticized by Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and at least one historian, Robert Dallek, a biographer of presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Both said Mr. Bush was ignoring fundamental differences between the conflicts. Citing Cambodia in particular, Mr. Dallek said in an interview that the mayhem under the Khmer Rouge 'was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilized that country.'"
Professor Dallek (the one taking the Noam Chomsky angle on how the Khmer Rouge holocaust was America's fault) has long been the Times's go-to guy for criticism of Bush as well as past Republican presidents.
Update 14:54 | Matthew Sheffield. Ace catches ABCNews.com making a similar judgment albeit even more crassly. The headline at the site reads: IRAQ LIKE VIETNAM: BUSH'S NEW TALKING POINT AS 14 AMERICANS DIE.
—Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times.
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Media and Dems heads are spinning like girl in Exorcist
August 22, 2007 - 14:31 ET by RJPicture their heads spinning round and round, while their inner demons make growling noises.
"It's Viet Nam"...wait a minute, no it's not"
"We're losing in Iraq....wait a minute, no we're not"
"Oh, it's so confusing!"
America is catching on.....
August 22, 2007 - 14:48 ET by JayTeeAs the NYT flip-flops, as Hillary flip flops and flop flips, the American people are "getting it" they are catching on to the hypocrites, the double speak, the previous Liberal positions that become like anchors around the necks of NYT and Dems, as they try to throw off old "Truths" for new opposite "Truths". The political position dejur.
Americans aren't dumb, they will see thru the propaganda, and they will remember last years editorials, compared to this years.
The NYT is, what they is.
Non illigitamus carborundum
Saying the "idea that we're
August 22, 2007 - 14:52 ET by bassndudeSaying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.
"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening. Howard Dean, Dec, 6 2005.
McGovern Says Iraq Like Vietnam, Urges Heading for 'Nearest Exit'
John Kerry sayes that Iraq is a quagmire like Vietnam. 2004 election campagne
You noted David Sanger. I find it strange that most of these people never served in the military, let alone vietnam and are to young to remember vietnam. Yet they seem to know alllll about it.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!
Don't forget Bass-n-dude..
August 22, 2007 - 15:36 ET by JayTeeMcGovern lost by a landslide.........
What good is a Free Press, if it is a False Press ? David Foote GoE
I wonder if Kerrys head exploded
August 22, 2007 - 14:58 ET by bassndudewhen he heard this
Save a SeAL, club a liberal.
United Western Front
August 22, 2007 - 15:12 ET by NortoBeliever
Here in the New York Post, Taheri writes:
"Now, however, both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy understand that the perception of Western disunity may be one of the factors that prolongs the conflict in Iraq."
"Wouldn't it be loverly" if the dimicrats and other appeasers could get their little minds around this concept! Imagine it would possibly shorten our time there and bring the troops home, which is exactlly what they have been calling for!?
Of course, their agenda is only about winning the WH, so they will twist and turn in the wind-like having to back-pedal out of the "quagmire" scenario about which they have been raving now that our POTUS has equated our pulling out with what happened in Vietnam. Now if these countries could send some troops to SUPPORT THE MISSION and give ours some needed respite
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Citing Cambodia in
August 22, 2007 - 15:54 ET by BDCiting Cambodia in particular, Mr. Dallek said in an interview that the mayhem under the Khmer Rouge 'was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilized that country.'"
Mr Dallek is obviously not educated in military history.
To state that the US forces in south east asia caused the Khmer Rouge is just historically an untenable position. At the height of the US operations in Cambodia, the US forces incursion moved a couple of miles into the Parrots Beak and Dogs Head areas of Cambodia to neutralize the so called Ho Chi Mihn and Sihounoukville Trail, areas that had been controlled by the PAVN since the late 1960's and had been largely de-populated of its cambodian inhabitants.
Amongst these areas the US troops located an NVA supply facility that was nicknamed "Rock Island Arsenal - East" in a humorous alliteration to the US Army facility. This facility took years to construct and supplied most of the southern half of the communist effort in South Vietnam.
It would be infinately more accurate to say that the communist Khmer Rouge was much more influenced by the PAVN/NVA who had moved into the area years previously and began cultivating them for later use in spreading their communist goals.
Even the so called secret US bombings of Cambodia were largely limited to these depopulated areas.
Liberals speaking of military history are always suspect.