Editorials

President Bush took to the TV again on Wednesday, trying his best to reverse the public’s growing disillusionment about the disastrous war in Iraq.

As usual, he picked the friendliest of venues. In front of a crowd at a Veterans of Foreign Wars conference (next week he’ll address the American Legion), the president went about injecting all manner of squishy arguments to justify our continued stay in Iraq.

There were ample mentions of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and the war on terrorism. He also spent a good deal of time making historical comparisons. There was Iraq and World War II. There was the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and al-Qaida’s hijackings. He compared the war in Iraq to the war in Korea and the critics of that war and the critics of this war. He compared critical press coverage then to critical press coverage now.

And he did all of this — actually comparing the overt aggression of one nation against another with an unjustified pre-emptive war — with a straight face.

The veterans did as they always do and should do; they applauded politely. George W. Bush, after all, is the commander-in-chief.

Before the Ladies Garden Club of Peoria or almost any other audience he would have been given, at best, the silent treatment he deserves.

The president even went on to make a comparison to the war in Vietnam. It was not the one so many think of — the quagmire comparison — but an altogether different version. We left Vietnam and chaos and death descended in the form of the Khmer Rogue and re-education camps, the president reminded us.

He got that right. But he also failed to mention that Vietnam was essentially unwinnable, just as this war is essentially unwinnable. And for what it’s worth, mainstream historians immediately and widely disagreed with the president Wednesday about the comparison of the wars in Iraq and Vietnam.

It is refreshing, however, to see that the president has taken to reviewing history. Too bad he didn’t take time to read history books before invading Iraq. If he had, maybe he would have had a better idea of the horrible cost of war.