Media searches frantically for an angle on Bush’s visit to Vietnam
posted at 4:15 pm on November 17, 2006 by Allahpundit
What can you do with a story like this? There’s the religious oppression angle, sure, but how “sexy” is that? You’ve got KFCs springing up in Hanoi so the communists-embracing-capitalism thing is there if you want. But that’s been done to death with the Chinese.
I don’t know. Maybe the media will just have to take a pass on this one.
Feel it.
Here’s another one for the scrapbook. Imagine thirty years from now, President George P. Bush sitting side by side in Baghdad with the Shiite military dictator of Iraq, a huge bust of Moqtada al-Sadr behind them.
Won’t that be grand?
Page 6 of the new AP-Ipsos poll puts approval of Bush’s handling of the war at 31%, an all-time low. Mona Charen, writing today in NRO, says it’s all over. Tony Blair appealed publicly today to Syria and Iran to renounce terrorism and join the community of nations — in an interview with Al Jazeera English.
That’s the bad news. The good news? By losing, we actually win!
Update: They want Vietnam analogies? Fine. Click the image to watch.
Update: Blair agreed with David Frost when, during the AJE interview, he asserted that the war has “so far been pretty much of a disaster.”
Blowback
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The communists were right. Damn it. I had my eggs in the wrong basket.
lorien1973 on November 17, 2006 at 4:19 PM
Unfortunately, i think Mona Charen is right.
Scot on November 17, 2006 at 4:21 PM
I guess if it was Bill Clinton in Veitnam the picture would be of “Ho Chi Mamma”.
William Amos on November 17, 2006 at 4:30 PM
The millions of people slaughtered after the US pulled out were unavailable to back up this claim.
lorien1973 on November 17, 2006 at 4:30 PM
Alan Colmes and Mark Fuhrman were seen rumbling in the parking lot.
RightWinged on November 17, 2006 at 4:33 PM
AP, I’ve got links to some hilarious images of Bush’s asian trip, but I’m afraid multiple links in an email will trip your spam filter. Is this the case, or will you get the emails?
RightWinged on November 17, 2006 at 4:35 PM
Mona Charen is right.
There is a big difference between Vietnam and Iraq that I haven’t heard anyone mention. In Vietnam we were fighting for the South Vietnamese, who had a capitalist country that had been Westernized to a large extent that had the peaceful religions and philosophies of Catholicism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
In Iraq we are fighting for this.
This is why the American people are getting fed up. In any case, what dominoes could fall next after Iraq? Iran? Syria? The Vietnam, Iraq comparisons don’t make sense.
januarius on November 17, 2006 at 4:36 PM
lorien,
I heard Bush’s statements on the radio this morning. Un-effing-believable.
I renounce any – ANY – support for him. He is now a menace to our own country.
Editor on November 17, 2006 at 4:36 PM
The link didn’t work. I’ll try again. Here is what we are fighting for in Iraq. Compare that to the South Vietnamese.
http://www.doitforthestory.com/graphics/Muq%20Al-Sadr.jpg
januarius on November 17, 2006 at 4:40 PM
They could always photoshop a picture of Hanoi Jane and have Bush siting in the gun chair.
BobK on November 17, 2006 at 4:45 PM
Ho. Ho. Ho. Guess they couldn’t get a bigger bust huh? Fabulous flowers though.
honora on November 17, 2006 at 4:55 PM
Dude. You know how many communist kids’ organs have to be sold to buy a bust of that quality. LOTS!
lorien1973 on November 17, 2006 at 4:59 PM
Try this one on: America is Rome, and there are many outposts in the Republic / Empire, and many challenges to the Standard.
Carthage ( the USSR ) has been defeated, thanks to Cato and others, but there are always Parthians and Gauls and Germans…..
Janos Hunyadi on November 17, 2006 at 6:15 PM
Let me guess, my last post didn’t get through because I said the F-word.
Okay, how about: May God roast George Bush in the lowest pits of hell.
mikeomatic on November 17, 2006 at 6:20 PM
“Win by losing”? For those that think we won Vietnam by losing, remember that Ho Chi Minh’s successors survived as a pure Communist state for several years after the fall of their patron state, the Soviet Union, and that they still run Vietnam by adopting the ChiCom model.
Looks like the battle is now going to be the Chinese-led Communists versus the Islamists, with America as the battleground.
steveegg on November 17, 2006 at 6:42 PM
If only we could get the media to think their Iraq = Vietnam analogy through.
If we cut and run, who plays Pol Pot this time? My money is on Ahmadinejad, but he seems intent on commiting genocide on someone other than his own people.
cool breeze on November 17, 2006 at 7:15 PM
So which roles to the Latin Americans, the ChiComs and Islamists play?
steveegg on November 17, 2006 at 7:51 PM
The concept of America as Rome comes from a book called “The Coming Caesars” by Amaury de Reincourt, published almost fifty years ago. There are some interesting parallels, but it’s not roadmap.
Any nation with a worldwide reach will have near-constant ‘border wars’/ The 90s were the exception, not the rule ( and not due to Clinton’s genius at foreign policy ). To live long and prosper, American leaders need to know When to Hold ‘Em and When to Fold ‘Em
Janos Hunyadi on November 17, 2006 at 8:54 PM
What did Bush say that everyone is so upset about?
Scot on November 17, 2006 at 9:05 PM
And also with you.
I don’t even know why I ever read the comments here. It just proves that there really are few differences between the extremes on right and left.
Did some of you guys get kicked out of the looney bin at FR, or something?
bamapachyderm on November 17, 2006 at 10:35 PM
I agree with Blair – they won’t walk away – they’ll run!!!!!!!
Ah, but for the “good ‘ol days” of Munich, 1938 when Chamberlain led the Empire headlong into oblivion……
Emmett J. on November 18, 2006 at 12:19 AM
Yep, we do -
However, the concept of America as Rome really becomes apparent in the almost fifty years after the book was released.
Look around today and see if you can see the parallels.
Now imagine – instead of Chamberlain, we have this!
May God help us all!
Emmett J. on November 18, 2006 at 12:24 AM
Likewise, Chamberlain’s approach in Munich 1938 was not appeasement either…………………….
No wonder that it’s called the United Kingdom instead of the British Empire!
…and even that’s a stretch!
Imagine – they’re our actual friends!
Emmett J. on November 18, 2006 at 12:58 AM
In de Reincourt’s analysis, Britain is equated with Classical Greece: an earlier smaller empire, absorbed and copied by Rome / America
That’s probably the most interesting part of the book, but it was written a year or two before deGaulle, and the author did not foresee the rise of Islam
He did more or less predict that America would defeat the Soviet Union, just as Rome defeated Carthage
The lessons are on the limits and risks of having global power, and the strains that such power put on a democracy
Janos Hunyadi on November 18, 2006 at 1:12 AM
What’s he doing in Vietnam? Looking for enemies of our enemies, I guess. No love lost between the Vietnamese and the Chinese. And yesterday, the senate has approved some nuclear technology deal with India, population 1 billion and change.
Meanwhile, watch Russia, Venezuela, Iran and possibly the entire middle-east form a new and hostile OPEC, with China as their best customer. Islam, their stooges, will do the dying. And us.
So I;m afraid the battle lines are forming. Europe is to all intents an purposes already lost, a hostage to the Russian natural gas taps.
dhimwit on November 18, 2006 at 7:07 AM
Lessons of Vietnam? Never buy into hyperbole. Remember the domino theory? We dropped more explosives on Vietnam than all the bombs we dropped in WWII because if Vietnam were lost (probably the wrong verb in that we never really “had” it) then that was the ball game.
Sound familiar?
honora on November 18, 2006 at 12:25 PM
honora,
What if the US hadn’t fought against Communism in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975?
South Vietnam would probably have collapsed in 1964, followed soon afterwards by Cambodia and Laos, and then Thailand. Communism was a powerful force in India in those days. If it had swept across Asia, Communism could have spread to Africa and Ba’athism could have been the dominant ideology in the Middle East.
The early 1970s proved the domino theory was right: all of Indo-China fell to violent Communism, and Cambodia vanished into genocide and cannibalism presided over by the Khymer Rouge. The decade-long fight in Vietnam had enabled the US to erect a firewall in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
aengus on November 18, 2006 at 2:27 PM
Maybe people were looking for this photograph of Bubba in Vietnam.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on November 18, 2006 at 7:42 PM
S Vietnam fell to 4 army corps of NORTH VIETNAMESE (not Viet Cong) employing more troops than the Normandy Invasion.
The communist-controlled U.S. Congress cut funds for the ARVN to the point where doctors were told to wash and reuse surgical bandages, and soldiers were issued 20 rounds of ammunition and 2 hand grenades. If we lose Iraq, it’ll be to the same kind of enemy.
The only way to save the situation in Iraq is to appoint an American governor-general, and make it instant execution for any non-American to be caught with a weapon in public. ANY non-American. They can keep their democratically elected govenrment, it will just answer to America, as should have been the case from the day we crossed the border.
Hiraghm on November 19, 2006 at 12:07 AM