Bush and Vietnam analogy. Not a blunder, but a calculated ploy.

[edhopper]

It goes like this. Iraq is lost. Sooner or later we will pull out and it will decay into a full blown civil war. This will end with either a Strongman Shiite government, or a partitioned country of three autonomous regions. It will be bloody and awful and nothing will stop it.
But G W Bush will not pull out. He will keep coming up with shams like the surge to push our presence in Iraq until he leaves office (six more months, six more months, etc...).
He knows the next President will withdraw. He is not trying to salvage Iraq, he is trying to salvage his "legacy". Now here is where he is laying the ground work. When we do leave Iraq and chaos follows, he will be sitting there as the elder statesman ex-President saying; "I told you it was just like Vietnam, if we only had the courage to stay, as we did when I was leading, we could have had victory. But just like Vietnam, we left and it became a failure."
Basically he is recasting Iraq and Vietnam, not as strategic and political blunders. But as a failure of not seeing it through.
This is all he has left, take a failed Presidency and a one of our greatest foriegn policy blunders and have history see it as a great mission that others lost.
The Vietnam reference is not as simple or foolish as it seems. Just more of the same political theater that is all this White House has. This is probably Karl Rove's parting gift to his beloved leader.
I will also say that there are enough right wing ideologues and think-tank talking heads to keep this great lie going for some time.

[Tanuki]

1. Yes, and he is running down the clock so the inevitable pull-out

will have to be on someone else's (presumably Democratic) watch.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. Gulf of Tonkin Incident = WMDs

That's how they're really alike.

[eleny]

3. But everyone knows that it's going to be a mess

The issue is how many soldiers get sacrificed before someone does the right thing and get out to keep more soldiers from dying.

And this administration has done nothing but feed the greed of corporations who are making money from this misadventure.

His legacy is already trash. Nothing can save it. Certainly not making an analogy to Vietnam that people have been voicing for years. Democrats will once again point out how we have the job of fixing Republican messes.

[yardwork]

4. None of them care how many soldiers and civilians die.

Every day that we remain in Iraq means more people dead, more people maimed for life.