Iraq v. Vietnam: no comparison

By Steve Boggess

I could make a living out of rebutting Maureen Dowd's political columns in her quest to make Bush look like the idiot she thinks he is.

Will she, or any other liberal columnist or Democrat, ever get out of the mindset of comparing a war that was fought over thirty years ago, to the one being fought now on the mean streets of the inner-cities of Iraq?

In her latest op-ed in the New York Times (I can now understand why the paper is referred to in conservative circles as the New York Slimes,) Maureen now compares Bush's landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln as cocky, reminiscent of Tom Cruise's role in the movie "Top Gun."

She mentions (again) the banner that was put up on the deck that said "Mission Accomplished." That banner was there to signify the end of the ship's ten month long deployment.

Maureen mentions the barbequing that the Bush's held for the press recently at the ranch, where she immediately bemoans the fact that instead meat that was being grilled, it should have been him.

Here is where her column gets interesting, if one can imagine that ever happening.

She then jumps from 2005 in talking about the Iraq war, and how it compares, in her mind to 1968 and the Vietnam War. She complains at how the Dixie Chicks got pilloried for criticizing the president right before the war began. The country band merely got an education that one does not disrespectfully disagree with a sitting president, and expects the rest of the country to fall into lockstep along side them.

Of course, when their collective bank accounts began to show signs of their fans not appreciating their brand of Hollywood politics, the Chicks quickly changed their minds.

The Alternative Band Greenday has a new anti-war song out which describes the pain of soldiers and their families. Maybe they had lunch with the Rolling Stones and compared anti-war songs as well.

At Camp Casey, sixties folk singer and legendary pacifist/anti-war protester Joan Baez sang peace anthems.

Gary Hart, who lost his 1988 bid for U.S. President because he let Donna Rice sit on his lap on his yacht, started his Washington Post column recently by quoting from a Vietnam anti-war song as well.

Maureen laments that we would all think by now that watching the "craziness" going on in Iraq, the Bush crowd would have learned some lessons about twisting facts to suit ideologies and punishing those who try to tell the truth.

In the last part of her op-ed piece, Maureen mentions Tracy Henke, who was acting assistant attorney general, when she wrote a brief about the treatment of black and Hispanic drivers; a line was crossed out with a notation: "Do we need this?" Ms. Henke has been nominated for a senior post in the Department of Homeland Security.

Maureen made it sound like there was a massive cover-up with that notation.

Speaking of twisting ideologies Maureen, the only ones who like to do that are liberal columnists and Democrats. Besides, we conservatives aren't wasting our time comparing a thirty-plus year old war to the one going on now. We aren't dawdling on the nightly body count that CNN loves to dole out to an admiring liberal audience.

There simply is no comparison to that war, and this one. There are many things different about Vietnam and Iraq. Geographical location, terrain, and living conditions are but a few, not to mention the great strides in technology between 1968 and 2005.

Maureen, take my advice and find something else to write about in your columns. To me, they have become both boring and predictable.

© Steve Boggess