I just heard Bush make a political mistake....

[kentuck]

When asked about the Viet Nam War, he said, paraphrasing, that "he had a problem with Viet Nam because it was a political war..." Why is that a mistake? If John Kerry is the nominee, hw can they criticize him for protesting the war when Bush himself says he had a "problem" with it???

[ShaneGR]

1. EXACTLY

But I don't think they'll even want to talk about Vietnam or Bush's military record.

[IndianaGreen]

4. What's the argument about Vietnam?

Are the Democrats going to argue that people should have gone willingly as canon fodder to a criminal racist war in Southeast Asia?

Vietnam was a Democratic war, begun under the Truman Administration when it betrayed the Vietnamese that had fought on our side against the Japanese. The 1954 betrayal, in which we refused to allow free elections for fear Ho Chi Minh was going to win, had bipartisan support in Congress. It was a Democratic President that sent ground combat troops, began carpet bombing, started the death and torture squads of the Phoenix Plan, and began surveillance in the US of peace activists. Nixon merely expanded on what the Democrats had started!

Both parties have blood on their hands in Vietnam as they do in Iraq!

[ShaneGR]

6. Uh, ok

No one is arguing that Vietnam was some great war. Defensive eh?
The arguement is about service (Kerry did, Bush didn't)

[IndianaGreen]

9. The argument is that serving or not serving in a bad war is a loser!

Once you make an issue of serving in Vietnam, the Left is prepared to raise the issue of Vietnam itself, in all of its gory glory. A lot a people sacrificed needlessly on that war, and many died fighting against it.

We lost 58,000 GIs for the lies in the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (the IWR of its day!), but the Vietnamese lost 3 million of theirs!

[kentuck]

10. Repubs are gonna say....

In fact, are already saying, that Kerry protested with the Jane Fonda Group, threw his medals over the wall, and should not have protested while his fellow soldiers were still in Viet Nam.

What should be his response to those charges?

[IndianaGreen]

11. I don't care what Kerry or the GOP says!

Vietnam was a bad deal all around, and one cannot raise one minor aspect of it as an issue without risking raising the whole ugly monster again.

There are strong similarities between the lies that brought us Vietnam to the ones that gave us Iraq. Are we to support a draft for Iraq?

I opposed the draft for Vietnam, and I will oppose a draft for Iraq. I will not fault anyone that tries to get out of becoming canon fodder for a bunch of war criminals in the White House.

Vietnam is a total loser!

[Old and In the Way]

15. Bush might have "thought" it was a political war, but was he

in Washington protesting it? Obviously not.

Say what you will about Kerry, but he and the VVAW were the catalyst in changing the preception of the war in the US. Sure, the Left had been very vocal about the immorality of the war since the mid-60s, but it was the VVAW that woke the public up and provided political cover for mainstream opposition, that finally brought about the end.

I look forward to the Republican chickenhawks arguing that Kerry's protests were a bad thing....

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. A war is...

Ostensibly the last step in foreign policy, albeit a distasteful one. If it is that, then any war is political.

What in ghod's name he meant by this statement is anybody's guess. It certainly doesn't parse for anyone who has more than two firing neurons.

[EstimatedProphet]

7. I think he was trying to paraphrase

The old statement "War is diplomacy by other means". However, if it's the last step, THEN WHY DID HE TAKE IT FIRST?!?!?

[nankerphelge]

3. Everything he said about Vietnam was equally applicable to Iraq

n/t

[cosmicdot]

12. which just might, help mute criticism RE Iraq

comparing Vietnam vs. Iraq

how can one criticize Iraq without bringing up the specter which is Vietnam when it seems some framing of issues is going on? it's one can of worms tit-for-tat for another

the issue may cancel each other out in the minds of margin voters, switching them to cultural ones

it may be a stronger position to have a candidate who opposed both Vietnam and Iraq ... leaving AWOL with no legs at all to stand on

the expectations of what having served and not served in Vietnam may be lowered due to other aspects of these 'wars'

[Tatiana]

5. He made quite a few mistakes.

Including his response to being a "uniter" and not a divider.

He basically admitted he was a divider and said he was clueless as to why.

Russell really nailed him on his unpopularity ratings with Dems, Independents, and Europe.

He keeps saying "I don't know," "I don't know." WTF does he know.

Then he's admitting that he's not going to change.

Unfreakingbelieveable.

[knight_of_the_star]

8. Anyone know where a transcript can be acquired?

I want to see exactly what stupid things he said so I can send it around :evilgrin:.

[dweller]

13. here

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179618 /

dp

[citizen snips]

14. That does not mean that Bush fully opposed the war.

He probably supporting it he just did not like the it was runed.

[StopThief]

16. I believe what Bush said was. . . .

that his problem with the Vietnam War was that politicians were making decisions on tactics in the war instead of letting the military decide how to achieve the goals of the war.