The republicans do not care what Americans think, they only care about their Rich Corporate base with the rest of their constituency being easily beguiled with nationalist bigotry disguised as patriotism. The Vietnam scenario so perfectly fits today’s conservative political mantra of “we know better than you, therefore your complaints do not count”, that I am sure the republicans will learn their lessons the hard way as well.

Only now, we will certainly be much less forgiving because they should have known better.

There has been a lot of debate over the comparisons between the two, but Halberstam’s interview made me think of the aftermath of the two conflicts (a connection no one has drawn, to my knowledge).

I know you were young at the time, but I was wondering if you see any parallels between the aftermath of Vietnam, and the immediate future for the US after Iraq (presuming the US will withdraw in the next year or so)?

Are there any lessons to be learned? Or will we make the same mistakes?

I have always thought Halberstam was being unfair to Johnson in “The Best and the Brightest”…influenced probably by his writing it immediately in the shadow of Vietnam.

Contrast Halberstam on Johnson in 1972 and in the linked interview above:

rather than the interior and more lonely kind of strength and courage of telling the truth to America (about an unwinnable war) and perhaps incurring a great deal of domestic political risk…

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 will be perceived, I think, as a major American achievement. And an achievement for Johnson, who knew that even as he was doing it, he was doing irrevocable damage to his own party. The night he signed the legislation, he turned to Bill Moyers [a speechwriter in the Johnson White House at the time] and said, “I’ve just turned the South over to the Republicans for your lifetime and mine.�

In 1972 he represented Johnson as being in Vietnam for domestic political fears…while in 2004 he acknowledged that Johnson incurred a domestic political body blow, and gave away the South, simply on the principle of ensuring African Americans had equal voting rights. In this, Halberstam mirrors the changing views of a generation on Johnson.

One of the great “Might Have Beens” in American political history was Johnson’s decision not to contest the nomination. My partner, an American historian, believes he could have won against Kennedy…and only Johnson had the political leverage on the Hill to get the troops out and survive the firestorm.

Think of what would have been different…perhaps no Nixon…the “fighting liberal” Democrats would still be a viable political force…the Great Society extended.

But by 1968 he was a broken titan. An American tragedy…though it has taken a generation for historians to see it.

I did an expanded post at my own blog and include a quote . . . er, excerpt from an interview in which he discusses both wars.

Here’s a link.

A worthy point. We will see if Mr. Bush, who claims to channel the wisdom of Jesus, has a similar catharsis.