September 8, 2004: Reporting for Duty... at the Sorbonne

Ron Rosenbaum has an fascinating (per usual) article on Vietnam in the current New York Observer. Ron is calling for us genuinely to explore our wounds and attitudes regarding that war, now that they have been opened up by John Kerry's "reporting for duty" at the Democratic Convention and the on-going Swift Vet controversy. I sympathize, but I think Rosenbaum's being a tad optimistic this exploration will get very far during a presidential campaign when the interest in revealing historical truths is not at its highest.

He does, however, put his finger on one of the more curious aspects of the Kerry Perplex:

But before getting deeper into comparisons between John Kerry and Robert McNamara, before examining John Kerry's choices over Vietnam-please let me utter one word I have yet to see uttered in the debate over Kerry and Vietnam, heroism and betrayal.

If there's truth to this story, the Paris option puts a different spin on "reporting for duty" and "send John Kerry," doesn't it? It's more like: "They won't let me sit out the war in Left Bank cafes, so I'm reporting for duty because I'd rather not get drafted." Before he volunteered for Vietnam, did he volunteer for the Sorbonne?

As I have written elsewhere, I tried to volunteer for the Sorbonne at almost the same time... Well, not the Sorbonne... IDHEC.... the French Film School. Boy, did that seem glamorous to me. I was able to overlook the first assignment (a fat text by Diderot in the original) for visions of Anna Karina on the Boule Mich', but my draft board, like Kerry's, said "Non!" to studying abroad. I immediately switched destinations for the domestic Yale Drama School. I was far too anti-war to consider otherwise. Kerry chose the Navy. Anti-war/pro-war... who knows? We still don't.

Comments

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Roger

I'm curious as to why you term Rosenbaum's essay a "thumbsucker"?

Haven't read it yet, but I've read a lot of Rosenbaum, and don't remember him writing thumbsuckers (although anyone who writes frequently has to write them from time to time).

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:31 AM

What I mean is a long article consdiering an issue for several angles. Anyway, that's my definition. I don't regard this as good or bad, merely descriptive.

Posted by: Roger at September 8, 2004 10:34 AM

Well, I've just read the first couple of paragraphs and he's sure saying what I think---and what more than one person has posted here, WEEKS prior to Rosenbaum taking up the theme!

Or should I say meme?

spaced repetition

The healing books:

Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H. R. McMaster

The Culture of Defeat : On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Jefferson Chase (Translator)

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:36 AM

Five or six million dead, and we still don’t have a consensus on what went wrong and why.

This sentence is so precise, penetrating, and unsparing in its brevity Terrye could have written it.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:40 AM

Catherine:

Rosenbaum is a heavy, heavy reader of blogs, so I'm not surprised.

Posted by: Eric Deamer at September 8, 2004 10:40 AM

I immediately switched destinations for the domestic Yale Drama School. I was far too anti-war to consider otherwise. Kerry chose the Navy. Anti-war/pro-war... who knows? We still don't

I'm going to run this by my husband again.

He has certainly confirmed Roger's description of the situation then; he says anyone who wanted a deferrment got one, which was not the case later on, when his number was up.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:43 AM

Eric Deamer

Wow!

Could we have influenced him?

Have other blogs been talking about the need for a consensus on Vietnam? (I assume they have, but haven't read them----)

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:52 AM

Eric

Which blogs does he read?

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 10:53 AM

My objection to Mr. McNamara�s mea culpa in the film has to do with his silence after he left his Defense Secretary post in 1967, and until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, despite knowing certainly by 1967 that the war could not be won�

This is the problem, right here.

This is why the entire country needs to take one week off and read McMaster's book.

McNamara and his very small band of colleagues did not intend to win the war from the very beginning.

It's not that they went into the war in good faith, planning to win; they launched the war with no intention of winning.

And btw, I realize that Eisenhower sent "advisors" to Vietnam.

Nevertheless, it was JFK, working with McNamara, and subsequently LBJ, working with McNamara, who started the war in the sense of committing the lives of American soldiers.

They committed the lives of America soldiers to a war they did not intend to win, and they adopted a strategy the Joint Chiefs advised them could not win.

Worse, they misled the Joint Chiefs about the war's goal, and the Joint Chiefs acquiesced in being misled.

The discoveries McMaster made in the course of researching his book--new archives had just been opened up--are analogous to the "discovery" that John Kerry opposed the war before he enlisted.

It makes all the difference in the world.

We are not going to have consensus until McMaster's book has been read and absorbed.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:02 AM

condemned Mr. McNamara for his silence after 1967, "when he too realized � that the dissidents were right" and that the war was "wasting lives atrociously."

McMaster shows that McNamara knew that the war was "wasting lives atrociously" from the beginning.

"Wasting" lives was the point.

It showed the world that America could "bleed."

As early as 1965 (I believe it was--certainly no later than 1966) LBJ's inner circle of advisors had dropped the goal of protecting South Vietnam from a Communist takeover had been dropped, without telling the Joint Chiefs, without telling the Congress, and without telling the American people.

But I think Mr. Kerry made a calculation that it was more important, that he would save more lives from being wasted, by speaking out against the futility of this war.

I don't see that in John Kerry, or in his 1971 testimony, which I have watched in full.

I could be wrong.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:12 AM

Catherine:

In addition to the books you recommend I would also add a A Better War by Lewis Sorley. I read Dereliction of Duty upon recommendation of my father who served in Vietnam in 1967 and really found it informative. A Better War takes up where Dereliction left off - the war from Tet 68 on. I am over 1/2 way through and have been absolutely bowled over by it. Sorley states quite bluntly that by 1970 "the war was won" due largely to supply interdiction efforts and a very aggressive pacification program. I must say that before I read this book I discounted the Iraq=Vietnam meme. Now I am not so sure but not for the anti-war crowd's reasons. There ARE lessons to learn from Vietnam both in terms of failure AND success which are applicable to any war in which "hearts and minds" must be won.

Posted by: PeterArgus at September 8, 2004 11:17 AM

Roger

What I mean is a long article consdiering an issue for several angles.

Oh!

Just saw this.

You might want to do an "Update" to the original post, because I'm 99% certain that "thumbsucker" means the kind of column people write when they have to meet a deadline and have nothing new to say.

I'm trying to think of some good examples.

Friedman writes a fair number of thumbsuckers, and I hope to heck he doesn't stumble across this comment, because I do like his work.

Thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking . . .

OK, here's a good example.

A typical thumbsucker for a twice-weekly political columnist would be a column decrying partisan politics. (Brooks has written some non-thumbsuckers on this subject, pegged to new research on the subject of partisan politics in America. A thumbsucker on partisan politics has nothing new to add, but instead spends 300 words saying: Partisan Politics Bad. Me No Like.)

No one can keep up the pace of two columns a week. I think that's where the term originates. (Though, as always, I could be wrong . . . )

Assuming I'm right, Rosenbaum's article is anything but----!

It's wonderful; I'm so glad you linked to it.

Terrific.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:22 AM

Catherine:

I think LBJ gets too much blame for what went wrong in Vietnam. The war was not his top priority, Civil Rights, the War on Poverty an the Space Program were. JFK’s advisors and policy trapped him in a situation where he felt compelled to continue his martyred processor’s policies. He could have changed horses but Johnson was in fact intimidated by the Harvard brainpower. For the life of me I cannot understand why a war that was started by Kennedy became Nixon's war in the minds of the country.

Posted by: jerry at September 8, 2004 11:29 AM

Okay, Catherine, I changed it to the generic "article," but fyi the "word spy" (whoever he or she is) says this:

"thumbsucker (THUM.suk.ur; thi as in thin) n. Journalist's term for a lengthy story or opinion piece based on a vast, complex topic; a journalist who writes such articles."

Posted by: Roger at September 8, 2004 11:32 AM

PeterArgus

Thanks for adding that.

I've been "suspecting" that Lewis Sorley should be my next stop.

As well, we should probably all read Eliot Cohen's review of McMaster (I believe he discusses the "tricky" issue of writing a history of the Vietnam War that ends in 1965).

I have actually undertaken a project of finally deciding where I "am" on Vietnam, lo these many years later.

Although I was "against" the war when I was in high school, I didn't know what I was talking about, and what's more I knew I didn't know what I was talking about.

So my against status never really took.

I ended up being an agnostic on the subject, which I've come to realize only recently is a huge emotional and cultural difference between my husband and me. I missed being in the Vietnam generation by as little as one year or perhaps two, but that's enough.

I started with McMaster, and am now reading Braestrup's THE BIG STORY which is an account of press reporting on Tet.

It, too, is a terrific book--wonderfully written, with a compelling voice--but I've found it a bit slower going than DERELICTION. (This may be due to the fact that I read DERELICTION while on vacation . . . )

In any case, given the "culture wars," I need a clear account of what actually happened with the press in Vietnam. Everyone--right, left & center--takes it for granted that Walter Cronkite lost the war. (Or some variant thereof.)

No one gives any evidence to prove it.

I must say that before I read this book I discounted the Iraq=Vietnam meme. Now I am not so sure but not for the anti-war crowd's reasons.

No kidding. McMaster instilled more than a couple of doubts in my own mind, though Bush & co. differ so profoundly from LBJ that I felt reassured to a degree as well.

Cohen's review is here:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n51/ai_20633208/print

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:38 AM

Jerry

I think LBJ gets too much blame for what went wrong in Vietnam. The war was not his top priority, Civil Rights, the War on Poverty an the Space Program were.

Bingo.

That is McMaster's thesis, almost.

LBJ did not want Vietnam to get in the way of his domestic legislation, so he incrementally increased troops as a way to keep the Joint Chiefs mollified while not drawing fire from Congress or the American people.

The incremental increase, called "graduated pressure," was exactly what the Joint Chiefs told him not to do; it was a precise formula for ending up where he ended up, in over his head, and out of office.

(The Joint Chiefs advised a "hard knock" instead graduated pressure; they thought the goal was the traditional military goal of "destroying the enemy's will and capability.")

You almost have to read the book to believe what went on.

LBJ ramped up a war in a foreign land as a means of keeping the focus on his domestic program.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:45 AM

I think Rosenbaum is mistaken to believe that Kerry necessarily has a coherent set of thoughts or a coherent conclusion to give us about Vietnam. In all likelihood he has a conflicting set of thoughts and emotions based on a conflicting reality.

Why is everyone so certain that there is a single truth which we can extract from Vietnam and be done with it? Reality is far messier than that.

Speaking for myself, I'm not quite clear from day to day how I feel about my car, my job, or the clothes I wear (among many other things). My thoughts and opinions change daily, based on the weather, based on how much sleep I got, based on other pressures bearing down on me from various places. Things which seemed terribly important one day seem utterly trivial after hearing tales of a certain school in Russia. Isn't everyone like this? Why should Kerry be any different?

And why should the Vietnam War suddenly settle itself into nice neat platitudes? Let's just say we were for it before we were against it.

Posted by: WichitaBoy at September 8, 2004 11:48 AM

Roger

Journalist's term for a lengthy story or opinion piece based on a vast, complex topic; a journalist who writes such articles

Wow!

Interesting.

I'll have to watch how people use the term in the future . . . (I've only seen it used negatively, so I'm glad you changed it for Rosenbaum in any case. Whether his article is technically a thumbsucker or not, it's definitely worth reading . . . )

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 11:48 AM

Jerry

There is no doubt in my mind that LBJ is more responsible for the loss of that war than anyone else. He was the boss - he could have gotten other advisors. But he played half-heartedly at the war, always too afraid of Chinese intervention. He lied consistently and had his man Westmoreland doing the same thing.

I think it became Nixon's War because the already rapidly growing anti-war movement had to go after Nixon once LBJ was gone. If one wants to name it by genesis, I think JFK would be the person most responsible, with his increased intervention and his approval of the anti-Diem coup.

A Better War is well worth reading. It shows the radical change in tactics under Creighton Abrams, and how that led to a winnable situation by 1970. However, by 1970 the critical war front was in the US - in the streets and congress. This is one of the reasons that Kerry's behavior is so wrong - the communists had decided that they could only win by breaking our will, something Kerry was happy to do, and which in fact led to the loss and the deaths of millions.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 11:48 AM

Imagine a world where John Kerry had just told a story like this from the onset of his public life and stuck to it:

"I opposed the war while an undergraduate at Yale and didn't want to go to Vietnam. But when I couldn't secure a deferment, I joined the Navy in hope that I could serve without risking combat -- or having to kill another person. But when the swift boats to which I was assigned were moved from the coast to river patrol, I found myself amid some intense action. I'm not glad I went to Vietnam, but I did my duty in the best way I could and take pride in that and the fellowship of the men with whom I served. And I feel I continued to serve this country when I came back and actively opposed the war."

I think that sounds honorable and has the huge advantage of also sounding honest. But instead Kerry has inflated his exploits, infuriated his comrades in arms and every time he opens his mouth he seems to be squirming around the truth.

Maybe genuine modesty is too much to expect from anyone with the temerity to run for President. But even some false modesty would have worked better for Kerry. It seems like that sure would have made his story a lot easier to believe.

Posted by: John Pearley Huffman at September 8, 2004 11:49 AM

Jerry:

For the life of me I cannot understand why a war that was started by Kennedy became Nixon's war in the minds of the country.

Yeah, I always thought that was odd too. If I recall, Nixon was elected to *finish* the war. Perhaps it is because that was the time period in which the Democrats took on their pacifist bent, and choose to transfer their "shameful" past onto other shoulders. Sam Nunn was elected in 1972, and the Democratic party was not yet dominated by the leftists, but the party of Roosevelt was on its way out.

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 11:49 AM

John Pearley Huffman :

Beautifully said! If Kerry had taken that approach I think he would have mollified both wings of the party. But then, if Kerry had done that, he would not be Kerry, he would be a real person, not someone groping for definition.

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 11:58 AM

John:

The CINC is always responsible, I understand that but sometimes the CINC is trapped in circumstances beyond his cosmic control. Shakespeare and Tolstoy had a lot to say about that.

I do not hold LBJ blameless, I merely have a great deal sympathy for his dilemma.

Posted by: jerry at September 8, 2004 12:02 PM

Jerry/Chuck:

According to anti-Vietnam War friends, while they hold LBJ responsible for getting the United States into the war, they hold Nixon responsible for prolonging it.

From their comments, it would seem that their view is as follows:

Everyone knew that the war was going badly by 1968. Nixon defeated Humphrey by claiming he had a "secret plan to end the war." (I know, and they know, that he said no such thing, but the perception....)

His "secret plan," in their eyes, was to prolong the war through '72, drawing it down but not ending it, costing the US lives in the process. Thus, their sense of betrayal that the US could "end" the war in 1973, AFTER the '72 elections, rather than, say, in '69, after the '68 elections.

Personally, I find this line of argument unpersuasive, but I thought it addressed the question of why Vietnam is considered Nixon's more than LBJ's war.

Posted by: Sun-Tzu at September 8, 2004 12:16 PM

Roger,

Two things:

1) Rosenbaum needs an editor. In his case a 'thumbsucker' takes up too much space. I subscribe to the NYO and used to look forward to his columns. Not any more.

2) The real reason (IMHO) no one has a clue as to what went on in Vietnam is that our national interest was swayed by communist propaganda relayed through a gullible press. In order to wage a successful war in a media driven world, we need the press on our side. They were not on our side then and they are not on our side now.

As an aside: the downfall of our effort in Vietnam was the result of the first JFK's mistake: to announce the draw-down of troops, as admitted to by McNamara in Fog Of War, but obscured by JFK's assasination soon after. We telegraphed our intentions and the military coup which followed was the result. That left south Vietnam with a choice between a Saddam-like military dictatorship and a Stalinist regime selling power to the people.

Now the democrats would have us elect a guy who has already telegraphed his intentions to cut and run in the face of an enemy who expects us to do that very same thing. AaaRRGGGHHH!

And the press in in full-court press to make it happen again!

Derek

Posted by: DerekCA at September 8, 2004 12:21 PM

Catherine:

I've seen him make direct reference to Instapundit, Kausfiles, Buzzmachine (Jeff Jarvis), Andrew Sullivan, and Meryl Yourish, as well as non-political blogs like Gawker and whatevs.org

I've said before that I thought Ron Rosenbaum should be a columnist who is heavily embraced by bloggers in the way that say Christopher Hitchens and Mark Steyn are embraced. The title of his column, "The Edgy Enthusiast" sounds like the name of a blog. The graphic at the top of it (only in the dead-tree of NYO) even looks like the banner for a blog. It's also the most blog-like writing I've seen in print, a mixture of politics, culture, and personal diary. He frequently makes reference to internet-only pieces and prints the URL out. In fact, he always gives the URL if something is available on-line at all.

He is very positive about the effect of blogging phenomenon. He wrote a column about a year ago that I thought was a fascinating discussion of how old media should respond to corrections by blogs. The taking off point was the Scott Turow book Irreversible Errors. His idea was essentially that part of the problem with old-line journalists was that there is this huge professional stigma associated with making a mistake. Once a mistake appears in print it's thought to be in essence an "irreversible" error and a big blot on the journalist's record. That's why publications marshall all these defenses of their mistake after the fact. Nowadays, with the speed at which something can be published and/or amended, he thinks they need to drop this mentality and admit their mistakes immediately, more like bloggers. He solicited answers from bloggers on what would be the most intellectually honest way of handling the situation. For instance, should publications put out an entirely new version of the story (which would mean that there are two versions floating around in cyberspace and, in the case of a print publication, that the bad version is already out there) or should they simply correct the original piece at the original URL? In that case, how should they annotate the fact that a mistake was made, if at all? Unfortunately, no bloggers took him up on that dialogue I think.

Re: Thumbsucker

Since, with blogging, we're all "journalists" now (whatever that means), I've noticed more and more people using journalist jargon without really knowing what it means, including myself. I wonder if the goal should be for everyone to figure out the proper way to use these words, or to simply do away with this kind of jargon altogether. I think it starts because a lot of bloggers who started as old media journalists, like Micky Kaus and Jeff Jarvis, use the words. Some of them, I think are complete crap, especially the ones that are phonetic short hands for normal words that came into use for some reason that I'm either to young or too out of the loop to understand, like the odious "lede" for "lead", and "graf" for "paragraph". Some of them might be more useful. My understanding of "Thumbsucker" was always closer to Roger's than yours, but I do think the word contains a hint of derision. If it simply means a long, thoughtful article, than everything Rosenbaum writes for the Observer is a thumbsucker. I think the traditional term for what he does is "literary journalism", though he prefers "JOI", for "journalism of ideas".

Posted by: Eric Deamer at September 8, 2004 12:28 PM

Derek:

The JFK decision to drawdown troops was not because he thought the war was unwinnable, but because he was told the war was going well. Actually, it looked like we were winning the war in 1963. This part of JFK mythology was created to absolve him from responsiblity for the later decision to escalate. In fact the JFK approved the Coup against Diem because he was told that Diem was messing things up and creating sympathy for the VC. It is very unlikely that had the war followed the same path that Kennedy would have gone through with a withdrawal. If anything he probably would have gone Nixon on North Vietnam.

Posted by: jerry at September 8, 2004 12:29 PM

Sun Tzu:

Personally, I find this line of argument unpersuasive, but I thought it addressed the question of why Vietnam is considered Nixon's more than LBJ's war.

I too find it unpersuasive. Nixon was despised by Democrats long before 1968, nor was there ever any support for Nixon among the antiwar crowd to be betrayed. I'm of the opinion your friend(s) are just rationalizing an irrational position.

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 12:32 PM

Jerry,

Thanks for the info. I was basing my perspective soley on the FOG film.

My real point is the role of the media in swaying opinion. Just look at Tet! We won and because a news reader said we lost, we all thought we lost.

Even though it sounds McCarthy about the press, we only need to look at Duranty to know that the propaganda thing is true.

Only now we have entire generation of MSM workers who've swallowed the "Amerika Imperialist" trash that Moore/Franken/MoveOn vomits up to enrich themselves.

Derek

Posted by: DerekCA at September 8, 2004 12:38 PM

I was twelve in 1971, Kerry has opened the wounds of shame I had hidden away these past thirty years. I realize today that I have never been able to get over the shame I have felt towards the manner in which America treated her returning soldiers. America preferred to follow kerry's fabricated stories of our American soldiers as war criminals on the level of "Genghis Khan" thus ensuing a hatred upon our soldiers like no other. Our returning soldiers were spat upon, riduculed as baby killers and alone, were left to defend their honor from unwarranted dishonor.

For me, the 1970's happens to be the worst decade of my life. Kerry is a reminder of my shame and of America's shame.

Posted by: syn at September 8, 2004 12:38 PM

Rosenbaum needs an editor. In his case a 'thumbsucker' takes up too much space. I subscribe to the NYO and used to look forward to his columns. Not any more.

Them's fightin' words goldernit! If you don't look forward to his columns then why on earth do you subscribe? For Robert Sam Anson's weekly 5,000-word puff piece on John Kerry? For Phillip Weiss's latest anti-Israel diatribe? For Joe Conason's latest recitation of that week's talking points beamed to him from Moveon.org? For Gail Sheehy's continuous flogging of outlandish "Bush knew!!!" conspiracy theories through her exploitation of the "4 moms from New Jersey" whom she turned into media darlings and uses routinely as political props?

I mean, I guess you could content yourself with the thought that you get Rick Brookhiser every two weeks, and occasionally Bruce Feirstein says something sensible, and there's Moira Hodgson's excellent food writing. Or, maybe you can read
"8-day week" and think about how hot Noelle Hancock is. (I mean, have you seen a picture? yowza!)

And, don't even get me started on Rex "Yes folks, he's still alive" Reed.

Rosenbaum is about the only reason to subscribe. (George Gurley's things are short enough that you can read them on-line at work.)

Posted by: Eric Deamer at September 8, 2004 12:44 PM

syn,

I really don't hold Kerry responsible for causing all that. It was around, and Kerry took part, and tried to define himself with it. I think it is part of a pattern in Kerry's life of seeking approval, without having any real opinions/personality of his own. It's why he looks so phony, flip-floppish, and yes, pitiable.

By the bye, I also recall that after Nixon abolished the draft, there was a decrease in protests. It made me cynical about the motives of the "antiwar" protesters. Well, that, and spending a drizzly morning outside the Soviet embassy protesting the invasion of Czechoslovakia without seeing hardly anybody else. And then there was Pol Pot, and no protest there either.

I don't think it was ever much about the morality of the war, just that it interfered with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and was the hip thing to do, like wearing bellbottoms, miniskirts, and sandals. Speaking of which, bellbottoms and miniskirts seem to be in an up phase. Who can complain about miniskirts?

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 12:57 PM

Eric,

I look forward to Brookhiser, enjoy Andrew Sarris' movie reviews, and live for Simon Doonan.

Also, I marvel at the stupidity of people like Conason.

All in all, one can get the pulse of what NY limosine liberals really think without the faux intellectualism of the NYT.

I still read Rosenbaum, but he needs an editor! Jeesh!

But also, I like knowing the dirt on the publication industry. And, the book reviews are a scream. Recently, a group review (gangbang?)of blow-hard Dylan-ology had me in tears.

Derek

Posted by: DerekCA at September 8, 2004 1:04 PM

John Moore & everyone

However, by 1970 the critical war front was in the US - in the streets and congress

This is essentially McMaster's argument (I don't think I'm misstating).

He doesn't discuss any events after 1964, and his book is a diplomatic, not a military, history. He doesn't take a position on whether the war was winnable, or whether it had in fact been won in all but name, in 1970 or any other time.

But he clearly states that by 1968 the political support necessary to fight and win a war had been lost.

For that he blames JFK, LBJ, Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The irony here is that once again John Kerry, simply by virtue of his campaign, is (probably) helping to depress political will.

OTOH, it's important to point out that McMaster explicitly argues that the war was not lost on the campuses or at the NEW YORK TIMES.

The war was lost in Washington.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 1:11 PM

WichitaBoy

Why is everyone so certain that there is a single truth which we can extract from Vietnam and be done with it? Reality is far messier than that

Well, maybe so, but McMaster is a guy who has achieved Maximum Clarity.

Isn't everyone like this?

I don't think so . . . BUT YOU COULD BE RIGHT!

I'm dogmatic as hell myself, although I do listen to reason (I try) and I fact-check myself a lot, too.

My husband is also dogmatic as hell, so in my world NOBODY THINKS ONE THING TODAY AND ANOTHER THING TOMORROW, EVER.

We occupy a highly conflictual completely and totally non-messy reality around here.

Until your post it hadn't occurred to me that that probably has its advantages.

In any case, insofar as I understand "cultural history" and "civil religion" and all, countries do need to arrive at a shared narrative of major events like the Vietnam War.

We have a shared narrative concerning the American Revolution (definitely a messy reality there), the Civil War (messier and messier), and World Wars I & II.

We need to create one about Vietnam, too.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 1:25 PM

Eric Deamer

I love Rosenbaum, and used to subscribe to the OBSERVER almost for him alone. (I canceled my subscription a few days after 9-11, immediately after reading Conason's bitter denunciation of Bush, Republicans & Star Wars on grounds that missile defense wouldn't have stopped 9-11. The paper obviously got zillions of complaints, because Conason wrote what was essentially an apology and a retraction in his next column, as I recall.)

I encountered the term "thumbsucker," which I for one would not want to retire, applied to a TIMES columnist, quite possibly the aforementioned Tom Friedman.

So probably the evolutionary history of the term is long-thought-piece to short-non-thought-piece by ludicrously overexposed NYTIMES columnist.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 1:31 PM

Let me say this, the North Vietnamese command was within three days of suing for peace just after the Tet Offensive which was a huge military victory for the U.S. It was LBJ that called off the aerial bombing campaign that was unfettered by NVA air or land fire. He deserves a lot of credit for stopping for coffee and a scone while on the way to victory. He was a moron and a boob domestically and overseas.

Otherwise, the hand-wringing over Iraq qua Viet Nam is overborne. The Soviet Union and China were both supplying and financing Vietnamese forces. Although Iran/Syria is certainly performing the same function the financial and military might they can wield in this venture is nowhere near that of USSR/China. Additionally, China and the USSR had many more people to contribute and greater military expertise to volunteer.

Posted by: Birkel at September 8, 2004 1:36 PM

OT but via Lucianne:

President Bush emerged from the Republican National Convention with a surge of support that, if it lasts, would give him a solid win in Arizona, a new Arizona Republic Poll shows. A survey of 600 likely voters found that if the election were held now, Bush would sweep Democratic Sen. John Kerry by 54-38 percent. The 16-point gap was a dramatic shift...

Posted by: Sandy P at September 8, 2004 1:36 PM

DereckCA

The real reason (IMHO) no one has a clue as to what went on in Vietnam is that our national interest was swayed by communist propaganda relayed through a gullible press

The press was for the war in Vietnam.

They turned against it as they began to realize that, yes, the country had been "misled."

Here is McMaster:

The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.

Braestrup, in THE BIG STORY, says the same.

He says the press radically blew the Tet story, and his book is a lengthy and detailed examination of how, exactly, that happened.

But the media's univerally negative and wrong coverage of Tet did not change public support for the war.

Every public opinion poll taken at the time shows public support remaining steady before, during and after Tet.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 1:41 PM

Birkel,

The word moron is getting overused and losing its flavor. Here's a list of other words that I think we should try in its place to spice up the conversation.

Moron:

ass, fool, idiot, imbecile, jackass, mooncalf, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simple, simpleton, softhead, tomfool. Informal : dope, gander, goose. Slang : cretin, ding-dong, dip, goof, jerk, nerd, schmo, schmuck, turkey.

I do think the inclusion of nerd is uncalled for ;-}

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 1:44 PM

John Pearley H.--

You left out the part about Kerry bitching and moaning about being sent to do dangerous riverine patrols. The Swiftees talk about that in U for C. He complained so much that his commander transfered him from CosDiv 11 to CosDiv 13 just to get Kerry out of his hair.

Catherine--

I too subscribed to the Observer for years. I canceled it after their disgusting, holier-than-thou editorial screed on the eve of the Iraq war. But Rosenbaum is a real intellectual (and I don't mean that in a bad way). His column Goodbye to All That, reflecting his disgust with the Left post-9/11 is well-worth reading.

Eric D--

I graduated from J-school in 1987 and I never saw "lead" written as "lede." Every now and then I did see "graf," though it was usually "graph."

Posted by: Fresh Air at September 8, 2004 1:52 PM

DeBorchgrave describes how the press blew the Tet story, Chronkite's critical and dishonest part of it, and how easy it would have been for them to fact check.

When Cronkite called it a victory, Johnson decided he was lost and decided to pull out. That's pretty direct cause and effect between MSM and the loss.

When the enemy saw the response, they scrubbed their plan to sue for peace, and instead adopted a strategy of breaking America's will.

As I remember it, America still had a lot of support for the war when the Democrats captured congress and forced the cut-off of aid to the South, and forced the prohibition of US military support.

The anti-war movement was complex. It ranged from dedicated radicals of various ideological stripes (the Maoists seemed the most idiotic to me) to useful idiots - college kids who feld pacifistic. Some of the movements became violent - the most infamous was the Weatherman faction of the SDS. Others were violent only in demonstrations or not violent at all. I watched the violent sects drive away (by threat of force) the peace and love and flowers organizers of a 300,000 person demonstration that ended at the San Francisco polo grounds. Since most of the demonstrators were more into peace and love and flowers (especially certain kinds), the demonstration fell apart.

Once the draft was ended, the anti-war movement collapsed. The more radical went on to become very violent - bank robberies, murders, bombings - while I everyone else moved on to the next phase of their careers or the hippie culture or whatever.

I had a college roommate who was a member of YSA. Downstairs was a drug dealer saving up to buy a bookstore (which he later did). Across the street was surveillance of some sort - we never figured out if it was FBI or narcs. In any case, I held a SECRET clearance at the time. This wasn't in Berkeley, it was Lawrence, KS.

The culture wandered into some strange directions in those years.

People were still fighting in Vietnam then.

One thing to remember as we contemplate Vietnam, is the fate of the Vietnamese and what we did to them. The anti-war folks are remembering various numbers of Vietnamese civilians killed. They need to remember those killed after the communists won. They need to understand that most South Vietnamese were anti-communist, having seen the consequences of the communist takeover of the north in 1956. They need to remember that this was not an anti-colonial war or a civil war, it was a communist war of domination. After the takeover, the few VC in the South, and the members of the PRG, found that they were not given any power, and some went to 're-education' camps.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 2:00 PM

From a military perspective, Vietnam was a difficult problem. The indigenous population is surprisingly large (over 40 million then, nearly 80 million now), the enemy was organized and experienced, with significant popular support, and the terrain favored insurgents. In addition, having to avoid approaching the Chinese border (since nobody wanted a repeat of 1950) hampered operations in the North. But most importantly, their seasoned propaganda corps played our media like a Stradivarius.

Johnson took a bad situation and made the worst of it. His telegraphed punches and graduated bombing campaign allowed the North to disperse strategic assets and convinced them we lacked the will to pursue the war effectively. McNamara's half-hearted incompetence provided proof. Worst of all, they dragged it out and gave the propaganda attack time to ripen.

If by "winnable" we mean a unified free Vietnam, it may not have been possible. But a military stalemate similar to Korea almost certainly was. In any event, the war wasn't lost until Congress cut off funding, ammunition, and the promise of air support in 1975.

To hear McNamara admit he wasn't fighting to win 30 years on was infuriating. Obviously he considered his political fortunes more important than the lives of men he sent in harm's way . . . truly despicable. Kerry and Jane Fonda vacillated between "useful idiots" and "traitors." It's a great pity the Constitution makes treason so difficult to prove. IMHO we ought to've had the trial anyway.

Posted by: Cecil Turner at September 8, 2004 2:24 PM

Quickie back to the top, if you had a high (or was it low?) selective service lottery number, you were going to be "called up" and if you passed the physical and qualified for no deferments (the student deferment was genesis of "blue-collar combat") you were drafted and the Army put you where it needed you. Didn't mean Vietnam automatically (there was Germany, Japan, U.S.), but infantry & Vietnam was the way to bet, late 60s/early 70s. So, if you were going to be drafted, and had another preference besides jungle combat, you volunteered, and thereby earned the right to pick your branch, along with all the choice available. So, young John Kerry was going in, whether he volunteered or not. Incidentally, Chuck is right, only a small part of the antiwar movement was "political", it was much more a fashion statement, wrapped up with dope, Beatles, jargon, and hair. I speak with UT/Austin, late 60s/early 70s, verisimilitude. By and large, 60s/70s Kerry ought to get a pass, as less spineless than most of his demographic in those days of thinking you were Che' by just avoiding getting a job.

The real Kerry problem is that he is repeating the sort of cavalier attitude about America and the future that so m,any of us had back in the previous era. That would be fine if we hadn't been proven--that's proven--wrong, and people-got-killed wrong, the first time. Now we have a peace party again, which after you cut through all the fog is a de-facto ally of the baby-bayoneters of the little red schoolhouse. And why would millions of decent Americans align that way? Because a fairly small cadre of professional politicians want to be in higher office, and are using, like con artists do, the best qualities of trust and enthusiasm and generosity of those who listen to them, in order to get what it is they want. All I can say is, if you believe what these pols are saying, then you either have no knowledge of recent history, or you're in one way or another self-dealing--which'd get you fired or ostracized anywhere but in politics.

Posted by: Buddy Larsen at September 8, 2004 2:35 PM

The issue of the press is another reason why we need to arrive at some kind of consensus or shared narrative concerning Vietnam.

As a "newbie" I've been struck by the "fear and loathing" conservatives almost universally feel for the press.

I can understand the loathing, to a degree. I get mad myself.

But over the past couple of years I've become puzzled by the fear.

From my perspective, conservatives sometimes speak and write almost as if they were living in Orwell's 1984; in a society where the truth of matters is daily and even hourly erased by a Big Brother MSM.

I don't say this to be insulting, and I hope no one here will feel insulted.

If you look back at our commenters' reactions to the first Swift Boat ad, I think you'll see what I mean. Almost across the board, commenters here assumed the MSM had the power simply to banish the Swifties to the dustheap of history, alongside Alexandra Polier.

Kerry and his staff assumed the same thing!

But that's not what happened.

The reason it didn't happen is that the press does not have the power over perception conservatives & liberals alike believe that it does.

Only recently has it dawned on me that one reason conservatives fear the MSM as much as they seem to is that they believe the press can get us all killed by lying about the WOT & the threat from Islamic terror.

Whether we live or die is up to the MSM.

Braestrup talks about this belief in THE BIG STORY. He writes that both the right and the left drew the same lesson from the Vietnam War: Walter Cronkite can lose a war in a single broadcast.

Of course, that's what I'd always believed, too, up until the moment I read McMaster and, now, Braestrup.

Both men say the press didn't lose the war.

And both man have the facts to back this up.

I don't know what the relationship between the press and people's "construction of reality" is, though if anyone knows of good sources I'd appreciate knowing what they are. (I know for a fact, because I write journalism myself, that journalists spend a lot of time writing what the audience already believes, not trying to persuade the audience to believe something else. In my working life, journalism has mostly reflected the audience rather than the other way around. Journalism is a business. You aim to please.)

Now I see that the press doesn't have anywhere near the power I assumed that it did.

I've seen this from both sides of the political divide.

From the conservative side, it is a simple fact that a good half of the country continues to support George Bush, continues to believe there were (and probably still are) WMD whether we've found them or not, continues to think the War in Iraq is part of the War on Terror.

A good half of the country continues to think these things despite the best efforts of the MSM to persuade them otherwise.

And yet conservatives take it as a given that the MSM has the power to banish the Swifties from view.

I see the mirror-image of this belief among liberals, many of whom also believe in the power of the press in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

The ultimate example is Evan Thomas casually observing that the MSM can guarantee John Kerry 15 points in the election.

Fifteen points!

That is nonsense on stilts.

If the press could guarantee 15 points to a candidate as weak as John Kerry, there wouldn't even be a Republican Party by now. All you conservatives would have seen the light.

My sense, without knowing the history of the media prior to the Vietnam War, is that in the case of the press our country has arrived at a shared narrative that needs to be abandoned, or at a minimum extensively revised, and the sooner the better.

Come to think of it, I have an addendum.

Evan Thomas may think NEWSWEEK can give John Kerry 15 points, but obviously many, many liberals do not.

These are the "What Liberal Media?" folks.

The "What Liberal Media?" camp agrees with conservatives, and with Evan Thomas, that the MSM can create and manage public perception of reality.

Then, when they see that large numbers of Americans continue to believe in nutty ideas like Saddam-had-WMD, or Saddam-was-a-threat-to-America, or even Saddam-had-ties-to-Al-Qaeda, they conclude that the press has clearly failed in its obligation to straighten us out.

Ergo: What liberal media?

If the media were really liberal, all the rest of us would be liberal, too.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 2:42 PM

Catherine:

Am I brief or blunt?

In truth when I hear discussion as to whether Kerry volunteered for Viet Nam I wonder if people think the military is like a travel angency. You just go in and tell them where you want to go and they give you your boarding pass.

I have read that Kerry tried and failed for the deferment and then signed up for the Naval Reserve. The reserve is a lot like the infamous National Guard where all the party animals went to dodge the draft.

Today the Boston Globe did a story which starts the whole National Guard and Bush thing over again.

Gale was in the National Gaurd. He signed up at 15. He was in from the time he fisnished high school until he was about 30 years old. It was not fun and games. And his family are not rich oil people. This is the problem that the press faces, there are people reading this stuff that know more aobut the subject than they do.

Posted by: Terrye at September 8, 2004 2:47 PM

John Moore

Time to read THE BIG STORY, instead of de Borchgrave's article about THE BIG STORY (which I have also read).

Braestrup directly states that Walter Cronkite did not lose Tet or the War or anything else.

Public opinion in favor of the war did not change after Cronkite's stand-up. It held. That's a fact; you can look it up.

What changed was LBJ, who said, reportedly, "If I've lost Cronkite I've lost America." Or words to that effect.

LBJ lost his nerve, not that he had much to begin with, and subsequently the American public lost trust in its political leadership.

The American public will not follow a leader who has lost his nerve.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 2:48 PM

Fresh Air

I loved GOODBYE TO ALL THAT!

I've read it many times.

Terrye

Am I brief or am I blunt?

Well, I think the real word is "brilliant"-----except that "brilliant" conjures up images of Long Flights of Prose & whatnot.

I've actually thought about this quite a bit, because of Temple.

I don't think we have a word for "what you are."

It's some kind of ability to get to the absolute heart of the matter, and it's extremely rare, and extremely difficult to do, at least for most of us.

But I don't have a word for it!

I think I did mention on another thread, though, that I recently met a media consultant who coaches people for appearances on TV. She said that finding the "perfect one line" that captures your message is unbelievably difficult.

She spends hours working with her clients to do this.

I wonder if you'd be good at writing titles?

Writing titles is SERIOUSLY hard to do.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 2:56 PM

Catherine: The American public will not follow a leader who has lost his nerve.

The question before the house now is: Will they elect one?

Posted by: WichitaBoy at September 8, 2004 2:59 PM

Catherine

When Walter Cronkite was able to cause LBJ to decide note to run again, which is what I have read, that is too much power.

The swifties were swept under the rug in their first appearance (May 5). When the ad hit, the big news outlets said nothing for days, and then came out with pieces which were biased in their supposed debunking of the claims. When a press figure tells John O'Neill (highly regarded big time litigator) that his evidence isn't even half up to journalistic standards, it's time for a horses laugh at a horses ass.

The press in fact has vast power. Conservatives have learned to deal with this handicap. I believe there would be quite a few more conservative legislators without the left-wing press.

As a conservative, an engineer, and someone with a pretty good amount of general knowledge, I watch the press bias its coverage to the left all the time.... well, not as often since I stopped watching the evening network news.

Tonite 60 minutes is going after Bush with a hit piece. Nothing like it was ever used against Kerry by the MSM. It's about a subject never before covered (not) - supposed favoritism for Bush getting into the TANG. Never mind that the guy making the charges wasn't in office at the time, and has a sleazy reputation and is currently a big money political fixer... he'll make some assertions. The piece is cut to make the Bush family look as bad as possible. But hey, it's just objective news. Timing? A coincidence.

On Sunday, a whole bunch of Vietnam Veterans including yours truly will hold a rally in Washington, DC - an anti-Kerry lie. How much you want to bet that the MSM doesn't cover it at all.

It's really simple. The MSM have a lot of left wing liars. They are not observers, they are filters and participants. They are proud of this. They are taught in leftist colleges that advancing the leftist cause is good. The idea of attempted objectivity is almost dead.

Our only hope is that the internet will provide alternate sources of information, and this will result in pressure on the MSM to get its act together.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 3:05 PM

A few points--

Buddy Larson: Kerry graduated and enlisted in'66, I believe. The lottery wasn't instituted till several years later; '69, I believe. So the lottery was not a factor at all for Kerry.

However--

Catherine: You could NOT simply get a deferment when you wanted one, by going to school, especially once you graduated from college. In college, yes, you did get a deferment, as long as you maintained a good GPR. But if you flunked out, you were going to be drafted, unless you came up with another college to go to, pronto. And as far as the grad school issue goes (which is the issue Kerry faced in 1966, when he graduated from Yale and was subject to the pre-lottery draft)--it depended on your community draft board.

Each draft board was local to its own community, and how it operated depended on the demographics of the community. I forget whether there were actual quotas for each draft board (I think there were). But the point is that if you were in a community where there were a lot of kids who didn't go to college, the draft board tended to have enough people to choose from, and could afford to be more lenient with the deferments for things like grad school, which were discretionary (unless you were training for some sort of defense industry-type profession, I think). I'm not sure how the number of voluntary enlistments was factored into the draft boards' quota, either, but it might have been a factor, also.

My point is that whether you got a deferment for grad school varied from draft board to draft board, and was never totally predictable.

I was (and am!!) a woman, class of '69, so I wasn't subject to the draft myself. But I had plenty of friends, relatives, boyfriends, who were, and my information here is based on my memory of the situation they faced. My boyfriend was drafted after his junior year of college, when he flunked out of school, and he ended up in heavy combat in Vietnam. I never really understood why he didn't try to enlist, especially in something like the Navy (which was known to be safer, statistically speaking), but his reason (at least the one he told me) was that he didn't want to face the much longer tour of duty involved in enlisting in any of the armed forces, as compared to the shorter tour of the draftee. The draft, by the way, only referred to the army--there was never any draft for any other branch of the services during the Vietnam war.

Posted by: blogaddict at September 8, 2004 3:06 PM

I'm no expert on the subject of Lyndon Johnson--but I remember when his tapes came out they were a revelation to me, especially on the subject of his attitude towards Vietnam. I have not listened to or read transcripts of all of them, by any means, but I seem to recall that, early on, he felt Vietnam to be an albatross around his neck, hung by the previous admininstration.

Johnson wasn't really a foreign policy guy at all--Kennedy was much more into that. Johnson's thing was domestic policy, and he had great plans for a "great society"--all having to do with domestic issues. He saw Vietnam as a terrible, inherited, and unwanted intrusion on what he wanted to do and what sort of legacy he wanted to leave. He didn't want to cut and run, because that would be perceived as failure, but from the start he had no stomach for the war. So his attitude towards the war was half-assed, always.

Johnson of course took over the presidency after Kennedy's assassination, and only ran on his own in 1964. But I seem to recollect, also, that he came very very close to not running in 1964, and it was because of Vietnam. I seem to recall reading that Ladybird, his wife, talked him out of a fairly deep depression about it, and talked him into running in '64.

But all of this background, I think, indicates why he was so ready, after Tet and Cronkite in '68, to give up. It's what he really wanted to do, anyway.

I agree, though, that the press is biased and way too powerful. But I don't think Cronkite could have possibly swayed Johnson, if Johnson hadn't been edging very strongly that way already.

Posted by: blogaddict at September 8, 2004 3:17 PM

Regarding the Navy Reserve - an enlistment there was much different from most Guard enlistments (although closer to Bush's extended active duty situation).

The reason is that you had a significant (at least 2 years) active duty requirement. That meant participation in a normal active duty organization (in Kerry's case, the Gridley). A friend and I signed up together, both as enlisted (I think I avoided the officer route for time requirements, but not sure). He spent 2 years on the deck of the Ticonderoga in the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club. He worked 16 hours a day on the very dangerous deck of that carrier, and even once took a flight over North Vietnam just for fun.

I was assigned to an anti-submarine squadron - land based. I spent my (almost) 2 years flying as a radio operator / onboard tech / observer on the P-3 Orion, including flying at Cam Rahn Bay.

Kerry volunteered for Swift Boats. At the time, they were doing a relatively safe mission on the coast of Vietnam, although they had some serious combat. Two weeks after joing the swifties, the mission changed to the highly dangerous riverine operation. Kerry complained a lot that "this is not what I signed up for" - which means he never understood the military. When you are in the military, you do what they want. As you say, not a travel agency.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 3:22 PM

Terrye:

Unless I misunderstand your reference to Kerry joining the Naval Reserve I believe you do not understand how Naval Commissions worked at the time. The only people who got regular navy commissions in 1966 were Naval Academy Graduates. Everybody else got a Reserve Commission with a 6 year committment. That means NROTC, OCS, AVROC etc were all reserve commissions. If you wished to stay then you had to apply for augmentation to regular status.

Posted by: jerry at September 8, 2004 3:22 PM

OT, Belmontclub has a post up on Rogers post, Naming Names - Part 705

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 3:32 PM

Roger:

One of the negative aspects of the SBV story is that it has given Kerry cover for his constantly being wrong about major foreign policy issues. His prediction of only 5 to 8 thousand victims in South Vietnam of communist reprisals was off by a half million or so. He was wrong about the sandinistas being a new kind of communist state and not a satellite of Cuba and the old Soviet Union. He chose the nuclear freeze idea and fought against the succesfull Reagan agressive stance that eventually brought the end of the Soviet Union. He was wrong about Gulf War I and if he didn't have 7 or 8 different stances on the current Iraq war I could say that he was wrong on this one too. His Senate record in regard to foreign policy is littered with one massive mistake after another. If the country had followed Kerry's lead, the Soviet Union would still hold millions of people in slavery all over the earth, Ortega would still be taking orders from Castro instead of losing free elections and Saddam would control Kuwait and 35% of the worlds oil output. Is this the man we want controlling the future of our country?

Posted by: Kevin P at September 8, 2004 3:52 PM

Uh-Oh, the Democrats expose their MF'ng totalitarian fantasies:

The subject of Hertzberg's prepared remarks was the conservative bias in the United States Constitution. Instead of one government, we have three: House, Senate and presidency. Things only get done when all of them agree. That is why, Hertzberg said, we don't have national healthcare even though most people want it and every other modern democracy has it.

Courtesy Oxblog

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 4:06 PM

Fresh Air

I loved GOODBYE TO ALL THAT!

I've read it many times.

Terrye

Am I brief or am I blunt?

Well, I think the real word is "brilliant"-----except that "brilliant" conjures up images of Long Flights of Prose & whatnot.

I've actually thought about this quite a bit, because of Temple.

I don't think we have a word for "what you are."

It's some kind of ability to get to the absolute heart of the matter, and it's extremely rare, and extremely difficult to do, at least for most of us.

But I don't have a word for it!

I think I did mention on another thread, though, that I recently met a media consultant who coaches people for appearances on TV. She said that finding the "perfect one line" that captures your message is unbelievably difficult.

She spends hours working with her clients to do this.

I wonder if you'd be good at writing titles?

Writing titles is SERIOUSLY hard to do.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:07 PM

John Moore

When Walter Cronkite was able to cause LBJ to decide note to run again, which is what I have read, that is too much power

OK, John!

I'm going to ask you to Close Your Eyes and Envision a Counterfactual.

Say it's George Bush in charge of the Vietnam War.

He intends to win, he has a plan to win (let's hope), and he is not lying to the public or to the Congress.

Walter Cronkite goes on TV and says the war is lost.

What happens?

A) George Bush panics, tells Dick Cheney, "If I've lost Cronkite I've lost the American people," then goes on television to announce he will not run for re-election.

B) Every conservative pundit in the country panics while George Bush keeps his counsel, or, alternatively, goes on MEET THE PRESS, sticks out his jaw, and says, "I don't intend to lose."

I believe the answer is clear.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:14 PM

WichitaBoy

The question before the house now is: Will they elect one?

OK, now you're giving Terrye a run for her money!

Yes, that is the question.

My answer is: a simple yes.

Maybe we'll smoke Samuel out on this one. (Sending secret bat cave signal--)

My own thoughts on this subject come almost entirely from Samuel, who has said, several times, that the American people reliably elect the candidate they perceive to be the stronger leader.

I'm sure he's right, or, at least, I'm sure the Bushies hold the same view.

That's why their elect-Bush theme is "strong leadership in a time of challenge," and that's why their don't-elect-Kerry theme is "Senator Flip Flop."

And here's Clinton:

When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:19 PM

Wow. I just read that Hertzberg post from Oxblog. The man sounds completely out of touch with reality.

Posted by: lindenen at September 8, 2004 4:31 PM

jerry and John:

I am afraid I did not make myself clear. I meant to say that when Kerry joined the Naval Reserve, which of course has its own requirements, he could not have known where he would be sent. The military is not a democracy.

I also meant that each branch has its own rules. In other words, Kerry wanted in the Navy, he did not want to be a pilot and he did want to be an officer. The Naval Reserve may have active duty requirements, but mobilization in the Air Guard did occur. Kerry has tried to convey that Bush was hiding while he himself took a risk few men took.

Catherine:

I am blushing but I think the above makes it plain that from time to time I just blow off.

In regards to medai bias, I think it is very telling that the Today show is going to have Kitty Kelly on three days running. Obviously some members of the press are quite partisan.

Posted by: Terrye at September 8, 2004 4:51 PM

John Moore

The press in fact has vast power.

This may be true.

But it may not.

Is the press creating reality, or is it reflecting the views of its own "base."

I've become interested in the nature of media power, when it works, when it fails to work, why & how.

For instance, I've begun wondering whether the press has the most "power" when it is portraying something people don't care about that much.

The MSM could bury the intern story because people don't care about intern stories. On the whole.

The MSM couldn't bury the Swifties, even though the MSM sure as hell wanted to bury the Swifties, because people do care about Vietnam.

Our only hope is that the internet will provide alternate sources of information

This is what I'm talking about!

"Our only hope"!

The conservative ship is sinking fast!

It's impossible to square sentiments like "only hope" with the plain fact that conservatives are winning.

Ask anyone on the left.

And I mean anyone.

People who are on the left believe that this country has been growing steadily more and more conservative for the last--what?
Twenty years? Thirty? Forty?

My sense is that they're right.

Conservatives have learned to deal with this handicap

THAT'S A GOOD THING.

The entire Mickey Kaus argument concerning the "liberal bubble," an argument Samuel has made a number of times as well, is that Democrats routinely fail to grasp the nature of what they're up against, and thus create and follow strategies that fail & fail dramatically.

Meanwhile conservatives, who almost can't not know what they're up against, spend their time figuring out how to deal with it.

I read a fascinating article today . . . in WAPO.

It was typical Liberal Bubble fare, so typical that I wrote a letter protesting it to WAPO's ombudsman.

Hmm. Don't see it right now, so I'll finish up here & then go find it.

What was fascinating was that the article drew a connection among 3 political ads, each of which had vast & disproportionate power to change a presidential election:

LBJ's daisy ad
the Willie Horton ad
the Swift boat ad

The reporter interviewed some professors who study the media, all presumably liberal, and each one of them said that the power of these ads was impossible to predict; the ads just Came Out of the Blue and Destroyed Entire Campaigns; no one could have guessed they'd have the effect they did, etc.

They were unanimous on this point.

Meanwhile I'm sitting there going, "An ad about nuclear holocaust couldn't have been expected to make a splash?"

"An ad about black murderer rapists being furloughed from prison by a Massachusetts liberal couldn't be predicted to be just a tad Attention Grabbing?"

"An ad in which actual, real live Vietnam veterans using their own names look at the camera and say John Kerry is unfit for the presidency can't be predicted to have just slightly more impact than an ad complaining that George Bush has presided over the greatest loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover?"

This is the Liberal Bubble.

The professors interviewed in the article are utterly clueless about what makes half of America tick.

Even Kaus has liberal blind spots.

He had no idea the Swifties would matter.

When the storm finally broke he wrote that he "hadn't been paying much attention to the Swift Boaters" (paraphrasing).

And I remember his writing, way back when, a post that assumed Kerry would automatically get the military vote because he was a veteran.

He knew about the Swifties, but it hadn't occurred to him they would make a difference, probably because they didn't make a difference to him.

That's the liberal bubble, and even Mickey Kaus is in it.

How much you want to bet that the MSM doesn't cover it at all.

They will certainly prefer not to cover it, and unfortunately I don't know the in's and out's of assignment desks well enough to be able to predict whether they will cover it or won't.

My guess is cable news has to cover it, because cable is cable. CNN, FOX, MSNBC; they'll cover it.

Once they cover it, the bloggers will begin bit**** & moaning about how the MSM didn't cover it, and then Team Kerry will screw up and refer to the demonstration a zillion times on the stump, and then . . . it will be covered.

Or maybe the MSM will just throw in the towel and cover it the day it happens.

Anything is possible.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:54 PM

blogaddict

So his attitude towards the war was half-assed, always

Absolutely.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:56 PM

blogaddict

AND the American people will not support a half-assed war.

At least, that's one of the lessons I take away from Vietnam.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 4:57 PM

OT, the Washington Times is reporting France was selling Iraq weapons right up until the beginning of the war.

Posted by: Fresh Air at September 8, 2004 5:09 PM

Catherine

It was a half-assed war when it was supported. It was a much better war later and I don't know how well it was supported, but I know the press was playing it as a quagmire by then.

In other words, the people supported a half assed war.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 5:11 PM

Never mind that the guy making the charges wasn't in office at the time, and has a sleazy reputation and is currently a big money political fixer... he'll make some assertions.

Don't forget repudiating a sworn affidavit.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at September 8, 2004 5:34 PM

We're many years from finally winning the peace in Viet Nam. Long after the last yippie lies mouldering in his grave, history will elucidate the winners and the losers.

Let's start with the losers:

1. The millions of butchered Viet Namese, and Cambodians, and the millions more forced to live in slavery.

2. The political left.

3. Old media.

The winners:

1. The American Soldier!

2. Free market capitalism, the United States of America, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

3. Freedom

Communism is dead; the left is dying; freedom is on the ascendance. The horrors of Islamofascism pale in comparison to the brilliance of a free human being and what he can achieve. The President of the United States of America is right. The 21st Century is the Century of liberty. The cost is much more blood and treasure. Will we pay? Most certainly. Freedom always wins.

Posted by: Old Dad at September 8, 2004 5:38 PM

I don't think you can ever reach closure on Vietnam; according to historians the only way the passions stirred by the Civil War ended was for all the people involved to die off.

I still can't figure out how I feel about Vietnam; I was like Roger, vehemently antiwar back in those days, and volunteered (at a very low level) on the McCarthy and McGovern campaigns.

I abandoned the notion that the communists were the good guys eventually, which makes it harder to be antiwar, and I fully support Iraq as a humanitarian cause, so it's hard to argue that we shouldn't have been in Vietnam considering the humanitarian tragedy that came after we left.

Posted by: Pat Curley at September 8, 2004 5:44 PM

I find it hard to say that the American Soldier was a winner. Vietnam Vets were run out of VFW's and American Legion events as cowards and losers. Vietnam Vets were denied jobs because of Kerry's charges that we were psychologically damaged - all of us. This, of course, created a great opportunity for people to claim PTSD and live off the government. Many do that to this day, further tarnishing our image.

Remember all the Hollywood productions with wacko Vietnam Vets as either heroes (Rambo) or villains - many cop shows and others. Thanks, Hollywood and John Kerry, for that stereotype.

And then there's the feeling of having been futile in one's effort because the enemy won.

I found Vietnam Vets in my world strictly by accident. Nobody mentioned it, but sometimes we would discover it.

The American Soldier did not win in that war. I'm going to a rally in DC this weekend (notice how the press suppressed it? check national review online for the only article. We have a bunch of good speakers. Maybe it will help.

Posted by: John Moore ( Useful Fools ) at September 8, 2004 6:01 PM

Everyone--right, left & center--takes it for granted that Walter Cronkite lost the war. (Or some variant thereof.)

Catherine,

I'm responding to this as I read down through the thread, so I don't know which way this conversations turns. I'm responding now just to say everybody but at least one person believes that -- I surely don't.

Just as there are liberal myths about Vietnam, so also are there conservative myths. The US military, ever since the U.S. loss in Vietnam, has been spinning away the notion that they scored a smashing success which the media and lilly-livered civilians stole away from them.

I believe the loss was partly the result of mismanagement by the civilian government, but it was also partly the result of some mighty poor military tactics and strategies. If you doubt this, consider the volumes of military writings dissecting the military failures in Vietnam and the subsequent reorganization of the US military and its tactics and theories as a result of those studies.

Our grandchildren will make sense of Vietnam, we, regarless of our political orientation, will all cling to our seperate myths.

Posted by: ambisinistral at September 8, 2004 6:03 PM

"Communism is dead; the left is dying; freedom is on the ascendance."

I'd like to agree, old dad, but I've seen too many of today's textbooks. We've miles and miles to go. Want to bet that one of next weeks lesson plans is "Understanding Islam"? Want to bet that any kid referring to "muslim savages in Beslan" winds up in the dean's office?

Posted by: Rick Ballard at September 8, 2004 6:06 PM

Mustn't...post...about...Viet...Nam...

Promised...self...not...to...
Must...maintain...composure...

aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh....

Mustn't...post...about...boomers...

aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh....

Gonna...be...long...night...
Must...maintain...composure...

Posted by: DennisThePeasant at September 8, 2004 6:26 PM

Here's the WAPO article on the 3 ads.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1151-2004Sep6?language=printer

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 6:28 PM

I just know we're going to need these links:

American Daily article on "Bush AWOL"

Chicago Sun-Times

George Magazine article: The Real Military Record of George W. Bush: Not Heroic, but Not AWOL, Either. (George Magazine, famous right wing mag published by famous right-winger John Kennedy Jr.)

FactCheck.org

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at September 8, 2004 6:31 PM

Oh, here's another one: The Hill.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at September 8, 2004 6:34 PM

John Moore

In other words, the people supported a half assed war.

That's true!

I couldn't put DERELICTION OF DUTY down, for reasons like the irony you've just named.

I was staying up half the night, every night, reading, reading, reading, then getting in fights with my husband in the car the next morning as I compulsively recited what I'd just spent half the night reading.

So Picture It:

3 kids
rental car
no sleep
autistic son number 2 screaming bloody murder every morning at 5 am & hitting in the car
Mom picking fights with Dad over Vietnam

Makin' those family memories!

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 6:34 PM

John Moore

In other words, the people supported a half assed war.

That's true!

I couldn't put DERELICTION OF DUTY down, for reasons like the irony you've just named.

I was staying up half the night, every night, reading, reading, reading, then getting in fights with my husband in the car the next morning as I compulsively recited what I'd just spent half the night reading.

So Picture It:

3 kids
rental car
no sleep
autistic son number 2 screaming bloody murder every morning at 5 am & hitting in the car
Mom picking fights with Dad over Vietnam

Makin' those family memories!

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 6:35 PM

Charlie (C),

Good list. Add this one by Byron York which gives a very concise synopsis of W's service.

Mr. Peasant,

If you launch another topic (STEAL THIS THREAD) I will try and be of some aid.

Posted by: Rick Ballard at September 8, 2004 6:41 PM

DtP:

Hey man, you're practically a boomer yourself. Far out. Just missed by a year or few. Wow, it's karma man. It's your fate. Want to be an honorary boomer?

Charlie:

Instapundit has the links also. Don't know who to argue with around here. I do work among educated people, though. Bound to be a few who are misinformed.

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 6:48 PM

John Moore

Vietnam Vets were denied jobs because of Kerry's charges that we were psychologically damaged - all of us.

Yeah, well, that's one of the things the Gone But Not Forgotten Liberal in me says: reparations should be paid.

That brings up something that struck me the other day:

Projection.

It suddenly came to me that the crazy-Vietnam-vet image may have been a projection of anti-war protesters onto men who served.

This is out of my depth, but there's a semi-psychoanalytic school of thought concerning revolutions.

In a revolution the people kill the "father," i.e. the king.

That's an extremely bad thing to do, whether or not he had it coming. The historian Lynn (sp?) Hunt has a book everyone thinks is terrific on this subject. I believe she argues that the American revolution was and is a "good revolution," because we didn't have to "kill the father"; we had a father, George Washington, here in America. (The French revolution was a bad and traumatic revolution, because the French did have to kill their king in order to have a revolution.)

The American revolution was not soaked in patricide & patricidal guilt.

I'm probably making this sound foolish, so I hope you'll give me the benefit of the doubt here.

Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me that refusing to serve in a war to defend your country has got to be analogous, in some way, to "killing the father" . . . I mean, America is your country; your president is telling you you're needed to defend your home and its people, and you refuse, march in the streets, carry signs, smoke dope, decide free love is a good thing-----has it ever struck you that all the stuff that surrounded saying "Hell no we won't go" isn't obviously related, logically, I mean, to dodging the draft?

Why does dodging the draft also mean dodging marriage, dodging career, dodging this, dodging that?

It struck me that the people who really did go crazy from the whole thing may have been (some of) the people who didn't go.

Not the people who did.

Haven't gotten any further than this, but I think some of it is right.

The ferocity of the stereotyping of the veterans--where did that come from?

I had no idea the veterans' groups were involved, though.

DtP

Mustn't...post...about...Viet...Nam...

Um . . . Dennis?

It sounds like you've got the right idea there.

I'm just saying.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 6:57 PM

DtP

Mustn't...post...about...boomers...

OK, that's definitely the right idea.

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 6:58 PM

Charlie

I've been trying to implement your suggestion, but I get a validation error. So far, nobody seems to know why.

Dennis

I feel your pain.

Catherine, et al

1. Dereliction Of Duty is something of an inside baseball account of a couple of crucial(?) years in the Vietnam War. It's interesting in that sense, but a lot of earlier books and documentaries told the same basic story regarding what happened at the highest levels of government.

2. Cronkite did not say the war was lost. He said it was going to end in a stalemate (like Korea) and he urged the powers that be to try negotiating with the North.

3. All in all we might have been better off if we'd not thrown in with Diem in the '50s. Then again, we might not. It happened. It's over. The Cold War was won.

55 days to go.

Posted by: Goof® at September 8, 2004 7:00 PM

Listen to Big Dad!

OK, I'm supposed to be Getting My Rest.

However, I will REPEAT that I for one am hap-hap-happy we're launched on another examination of our president's AWOL-ness.

Didn't John Kerry give a Major Policy Address today?

Anyone hear anything about it?

Anyone think they will hear anything about it?

I didn't think so.

Keep it coming, folks!

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 7:02 PM

GoofA:

That's 1516 days I believe. Hope you've got some good books.

Posted by: chuck at September 8, 2004 7:04 PM

Kerry had Paris for his attempted deferment

Kerry had Paris for his sooper seekrit private peace talks with the North Vietnamese

Kerry has Paris for his secret best buddy foreign leaders who want him elected.

He'll always have Paris.

Let's face it, we were wrong; Prince John Lackpair isn't Lurch... he's Bogart.

Posted by: richard mcenroe at September 8, 2004 7:11 PM

richard:

I wonder what Kerry has promised Chirac.

I wonder if he has said 'Just keep up the good work stiff arming Bush and when I get in...'

Is it money, a trade deal, what?

Kerry seems to have a habit of making deals with foreign leaders behind the back of the folks in charge. Is that a crime?

Posted by: Terrye at September 8, 2004 7:27 PM

Richard M.,

In the mist covered regions that make up the intangible, unknowable border between fantasy and reality in the junior senators mind I sense an inability to choose between Robespierre and Napoleon as appropriate models. There are some days when I am positive that he awakes as Marat or, worse yet, Danton, with a lust to see the sun glinting off the falling blade. I just don't think Bogart rises quite to his level of personal expectations. He's really fairly complext for someone of his limitations.

Posted by: Rick Ballard at September 8, 2004 7:33 PM

OK, it's over

A more whimsical poll taken in late August for the American Kennel Club found that people would trust Bush more than Kerry to walk their dogs, by 51 percent to 37 percent.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/9597802.htm

Posted by: Catherine at September 8, 2004 7:37 PM

The problem with winning in Vietnam was political.

LBJ was brought on the JFK ticket to bring the southern Democrats to the election, and for his in-the-trenches mastery of parliamentary seal-clubbing. Period.

Johnson and his advisors found themselves responsible for leading a democratic republic in a war that was never intended to be won. They panicked. The cabinet idealogues sought to hide behind process and let the years roll by while the top-tier of the uniformed military recoiled from the prospect of political activism and instead just soldiered. The latter was ulitmately a good thing, in my opinion; we may have bad administrations - even bad generations - but we don't ever want or need the professional military leading palace revolts.

We always had the tools to win if you define a South Vietnam secure behind the DMZ. That war was for all intents and purposes won with Tet. If you look at the conduct of the war under Creighton Abrams you see a complete departure from the endless war paradigm he inherited from Westmoreland. Nixon got credit for drawing down theater strength - but Abrams did that by kicking out the REMF's and lowering the ratio of support troops to shooters.. Abrams fought to kill the enemy with the intention of driving him from the field. All the diplomatic dancing around the Paris Peace Talks ended only when Nixon bombed the North - and it ended in literally days. By the time we got around to conducting a war like we meant to win it, the popular support was gone for good.

Abrams will be my next biographical adventure; gotta love a guy said "They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards".

We are not yet engaged as a nation in this war we face. No, I don't say that as an indictment of Bush's competency or leadership. I believe he has walked a fine line between the barely possible and the essential in making a good start but given our political/philosophical environment I am hard pressed to think of anything he could have done markedly different.

As long as a non-entity like Kerry can last this long as a presidential candidate the enemy can fairly conclude we aren't ready to do the real heavy lifting to oppose them. Four more years of Bush - especially a Bush free of having to face reelection - has to give them serious pause. A determined man can do a lot with the full force and fury of the U.S. military in that time, especially if he is determined to fix the intelligence and diplomatic beauracracies that have been the traditional weaknesses our enemies exploit.

We must defeat the enemy where they live. Whatever countries, whatever regions, whereever they are identified. And most importantly in whatever numbers it takes. There can be no Bunker America; it wouldn't work reg