Here’s Christopher Hitchens on President Bush’s unfortunate and ill-advised mangling of the Vietnam metaphor: To invoke Vietnam was a blunder too far for Bush.

…Here is a man who believes the ‘jury’ is still ‘out’ on whether we evolved as a species, who regards stem cell research as something profane, who affects the odd belief that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’.

However that may be, I always agreed with him on one secular question, that the regime of Saddam Hussein was long overdue for removal. I know some critics of the Iraq intervention attribute this policy, too, to religious motives (ranging from messianic, born-again Christian piety to the activity of a surreptitious Jewish/Zionist cabal: take your pick).

In this real-world argument, there is a very strong temptation for opponents of the war to invoke the lessons of Vietnam. I must have written thousands of words attempting to show that there is absolutely no analogy between the two conflicts.

Then, addressing the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week, the President came thundering down the pike to announce that a defeat in Iraq would be - guess what? - another Vietnam. As my hand smacks my brow, and as I ask myself not for the first time if Mr Bush suffers from some sort of political death wish, I quickly restate the reasons why he is wrong to join with his most venomous and ignorant critics in making this case.

Read the whole thing…

UPDATE at 8/25/07 6:27:44 pm:

Here’s the President’s “Vietnam” speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention.