Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Nobody blames Ford for the loss of Vietnam, which happened on his watch.> Actually, Jon, some people (including some right here on these boards) blame the Democratic congress of the mid-70's for "losing" Vietnam - as if, had we continued to funnel money to the S. Vietnamese government even in the absence of hundreds of thousands of US troops, that they could have held on. Of course that's nuts, but seriously, the "true believers" do argue that. But few people buy that and I'd like to think that few people will buy the idea that anyone but Bush brought Iraq to its current (and future) chaotic state. But we're so polarized now and the ideological machines/blogs/newscasts/talk radio are so much better organized than 30 years ago, that I think you'll at least see a concerted attempt to blame it all on the next president rather than Bush, which is what I'm getting at in #12. Wait for it - it'll happen. As 2oony put it, "most of their listeners will swallow that whole," which unfortunately is probably true. Here's hoping the second half of his sentence is true also: "but the rest of the world knows better."
Originally Posted By jonvn IT depends on what the next person does. They're likely not going to just pull out, Nixon couldn't do that either. We are seeing an exact recreation of Vietnam. Whoever is next will fiddle about a bit until we come up with a peace with honor plan. Then we'll pull out, the place will sort itself out naturally along whatever it is going to be, and the artificial construct that is Iraq will go away. At least we got some good restaurants out of the Vietnam war. What are we going to get out of Iraq?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Hey, I like a good shwarma. I think your third paragraph is about right, though. My point is that the now-organized blogo-talkradio-sphere will attempt to blame the next president for the bloody conflict that follows our departure, rather than Bush.
Originally Posted By jonvn They probalby will. But I think history is going to show that this was a disaster of nearly unprecedented proportion and it was done at the hands of the Bush Administration. Most people won't care, though. Who thinks about Johnson these days? Who even has heard of Buchanan who basically created the civil war and handed it off to Lincoln. If the next person can do something like Lincoln, stop the terrorists, get us out of Iraq, and so on...well, they'll go down in history as a great. If not, they'll go down in history as just another in a long line of weakening Presidents.
