Vietnam. Watergate. What's Next -- Disco?

There's no longer any doubt about the master narrative of the Bush Administration. Their purpose is to re-litigate the 1970s. Nixon's downfall, let alone all that followed, clearly has stuck in Cheney's craw. All his New American Centurions were so scarred by the fall of Saigon and the Church Committee reforms that even Morning in the Gipper's America didn't do enough to restore the imperial executive and the American imperium. So now we watch as FISA and FOIA are dismantled, checks and balances are declared Congressional overreaching, and the bully pulpit is being used like Stalin's commissars used scissors and a paste-pot to purge and doctor the historical record.

So what's next? No doubt some reactionaries are drooling to undo Nixon's putting the coffin-nail in the gold standard. Perhaps others want to retake the Panama Canal which, after all, we stole fair and square. The Supreme Court's already doing a decent job rolling back civil rights and civil liberties from the 60s; surely overturning Buckley v Valleo's campaign contribution limits is next in line.

I'm putting my money on an attempt by GOP culure warriors to expunge disco from the national memory. Don't you have a feeling that this crowd is still in a world o' hurt from humiliations they suffered beneath a twirling mirrored ball yea many generations ago?

Comments

[WaterRat]

Perhaps it is the American corporations based in Iraq, who fear a withdrawal will shatter their healthy businesses.

[lunaoscura]

Not to forget the corporations benefitting from Iraq, even thought they aren't there.

[gettysburg]

So if Mr Bush thinks we left Vietnam to early, why didn't he pitch in and help? After 50,000 lives had been lost, he had plenty of time to get there. He and Mr Cheney must have been busy.
And, since we left Vietmam under a Republican administration, isn't he critizing his own party? I thought that was against GOP rules of conduct.
So, when he accuses Dems of cutting and running isn't he also critizing his own people?
Bush has to be the most confusing President ever. I think he's making everything up as he goes along.

[travy]

disco never died, dude...

[choirgirl]

the thing is that they are really poor quality fascists. they keep playing they cards face up and everybody -- except MSM -- keeps calling them on it... and i bet they WANT impeachment so they can truly bring back the ghost of the original tricky dick.

[outnow]

On Olbermann last night, they played a clip where Bush was saying that Iraq was nothing like Vietnam - that no parallels could be drawn. That was in 2004. Now three years later he brazenly states that the two situations are identical.

There are millions of displaced Iraqis who will never go back to Iraq. The sanctions following the first Gulf War killed one-half million. This war has totally destroyed their country. Two hours of electricity per day, 50% unemployment, 1,000 killed per day, social superstructure destroyed, ethnic cleansing, and regional conflict engulfing the Middle East, not to mention the US casualties.

There is no political or diplomatic solution, much less a military one. Bush lies and Americans believe that they are invincible because of our broken military and God.

The American people will share this blame for Bush and Cheney's war crimes come judgment day. Were we acting under orders or were we just too stupid and weak to stop it?

[zjr909]

The only possible way to have "won" in Vietnam would have been literally to have exterminated every man, woman and child in that country. But of course the larger point is that in Vietnam, as in Iraq, there never was anything to win in the first place. The Domino Theory was as much hogwash as the Terrorist on Your Doorstep Theory. At least the Domino Theory had a semblance of reality: Vietnam falling might conceivable have precipitated another Communist takeover. But a thousand years of warfare in Iraq will not keep the terrorist from your doorstep if he's determined to get you. Besides which, why would a terrorist come to your door when the Blackwater thugs can do it for him? Another gift of corporate paranoia.

[googly4]

You hit this one out of the park. This administration not only has deep ties to Richard Nixon. They still think he was right. They have learned nothing over the last 30 years. Not to mention they still think the New Deal was wrong and are trying to roll that back. They think the constitution is wrong and are trying to turn that around.

So the minute after we gained independence we had a party here already trying to overthrow it. The ink was still wet on the constitution and we had a party trying to undo it. People on the ships fled Great Britain with hopes of starting the exact same government when they got off. We have/had people in this country experience the horror of Nazi Germany and try to replicate here.

How many times do we have to prove that fascism and most conservative principles do not work before the American people will decide not to vote it in. Nixon was wrong. Hitler was wrong. The trickle down theory is wrong. Deregulation is wrong. Corporatism is wrong. It doesn't work, never has and never will.

Impeachment is the only way.

[Spookcatcher]

YOU are so right! Of course they think Nixon was right, THEY are the Family that put him in politics to begin with! They are the Family that financed Hitler, until finally Truman (had the gonads) to shut one of their main (American) Banks down in 1943. The French were financed in their war in Vietnam by these American Fascist Oligarchs, through the proxy of Foreign policy ..

[JPHogan]

Seems an interesting strategy! I am not sure, though, that saying "we could have won in Vietnam" is at all a new perspective. Do we have enough records at this point, open and available, enough records to see whether such a strategy favors these Republicans and their party in general just because of fewer altered states experiences from such years, fewer "my parents and grandparents are COMPLETELY wrong and shouldn't be listened to, and, just as a result a maybe more multi-generation and such better balanced perspective?

[MsLiz]

Where is my generation? What are they thinking? I am disgusted that those of us who were in high school and college during Vietnam grew up to elect Republicans. We should know better than to believe their lies. We were all aware what it meant when a draft eligible man joined the National Guard -- it wasn't for the extra bucks, that was for sure. I am deeply ashamed that my generation is allowing it's youth to die and get maimed in Iraq. As long as it isn't them or their loved ones on the battlefield, my generation isn't protesting.

[thgy]

Amen!

[oafishcad]

Hey! I was out protesting along with millions worldwide BEFORE we started this insanity. Some in our generation never gave it up or sold out. Please don't say a whole generation is represented by the likes (shudder) of George Bush. Do you say all blacks or all women? Of course one sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Maybe protesting George Bush is completely futile.

[PuffDragon]

"Winning a War That I Dodged" - Bush's first published book.

Bush's endgame is to restore the Good Life for Robber Barons, and make America pay for the "Trading With The Enemy" penalties assessed on Grandpappy Prescott Bush. Making money by supporting fascism abroad built the Bush family fortune.

[libdude]

Conservatives live in the past. I've thought
from the beginning that the Iraq war was just
an avenue for the right to do Vietnam all over
again, but get it right this time. Trouble is,
there's nothing to get right. What a joke that
Bush is now comparing Iraq and Vietnam, but the
correlations he's using are the same old lame
justifications conservatives have always used.

[libdude]

And, of course, the right's attempts to ruin
Bill Clinton's personal life and career--and by extension the Democratic Party-- were simply payback for Nixon's impeachment.

[Guitarsandmore]

Disco 1979 was just a lot of happy people dancing like fools with abandon. Vietnam 1963 – 1975 was a national tragedy that sucked the life from 58,000 Americans. Mission accomplished: fewer social security recipients and less competition in the marketplace.

[Mitch44068]

OMG, HELLO?!?!?!?!?! Was anyone paying attention out there? Bush was trying to make an analogy between Vietnam and Iraq? Why isn't there wide spread outrage? Shouldn't all the veterans, instead of those most of them, do a double take and say, "WTF?" The analogy that Bush made between Vietnam and Iraq is not just wrong, but criminal. Especially the assertion that if we leave the war will follow us home, as it did in Vietnam?!?!?!?!? HELLO?!?!?!?! Yes, there were boat people but the analogy is entirely different! What was he implying? That the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians came here and brought the war and Communism back to America. And, if we leave Iraq, Arabs are going to come here and do what? Bring Islam and Al Qaeda in make shift boats?!?!?!?! HELLO?!?!?! Why isn't anyone calling Bush on his lies and distortions? Oh, that's right our MSM is busy reporting on Lindsey Lohan. Ok, never mind. But at the very least, the veterans should have looked at each in a double take and just spoke out. Oh, that's right. Bush's security detail made sure that they were either put into "free speech zone" or "shouted down" by his corp of hired "shout-downers". Great, another example of supporting our troop.

[Economike]

Lets not forget all of the jobs we've sent over to China. Republicans become very unconcerned about communism when they can make a buck of it, some democrats too.

[JHD]

Maybe Bush should start spewing these preposterous assertions wearing a leisure suit. We could have "won" the Viet Nam war? What nonsense. I lived through that disgraceful era of American history and find such comments totally delusional and offensive. If we had just sent in more of other peoples children we could have won in Viet Nam! The chicken hawks are squawking their bird brained mantra once again...

[Soulsurfer]

Absolutely right. Can you believe what the twisted historians are saying about Viet Nam? Its truly disgusting, like saying Reagan was the greatest modern president.

[seawolf77]

Like Bill Maher said these guys talk about Reagan like gay guys talk about Barbara Streisand. What they saw in that moron eludes me.

[kfdan]

I have to agree on the right wanting the good old days of complete freedom to exploit any and all with impunity! I'd say, they would like to return to the robber baron days of the latter 1800s!