Kaiser on Bush Presidency

Robert G. Kaiser: Greetings to all. I hope we can use today's chat to talk about the war and elections in Iraq, and the transformed political situation in Washington, particularly in Congress.

In the last hour President Bush gave the fourth in a series of speeches on Iraq, this one at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars here in Washington. It was a summation of the other speeches in this series; I saw nothing really new in it, but it struck me as a well-constructed speech, perhaps the best statement yet of the administration's current position

We've got lots of questions related to Iraq, so let me get to them with minimal delay. I'll just make one point at the outset--I'll probably be coming back to this during the chat, because I think it's the most important point to try to keep in mind. The fundamental American dilemma in Iraq now, I think, is that the success of our mission is out of American hands. U.S. soldiers, diplomats and construction engineers cannot produce the "complete victory" that President Bush reiterated today is his goal. Only Iraqis can do that. Democracy in Iraq, stability in Iraq, peace and prosperity in Iraq must all be created by the Iraqis themselves--Americans can't produce any of them. In this respect there is a meaningful parallel between the Vietnam war, which I covered for The Post 35 years ago, and this one. Ultimately, we could not create a viable South Vietnamese government to defend its own independence; in the end, the South Vietnamese couldn't do that either.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......

No bias in the media. Not at the Washington Post.

This reads more like Kaiser asking Kaiser what he thinks of the war in Iraq. Then has the balls to claim no media bias.

What a crock of crap. Nice "chat".

This is a remarkably fair and honest Net conversation, given the bias that Kaiser has shown in some of his prior work. He makes gross mistakes only twice -- once when he uses Vietnam, rather than post-WW II Japan and Germany -- as the proper analogy for Iraq, today.

His other gross error was in this statement: "Robert G. Kaiser: This is NOT a "relatively liberal newspaper." This is the Web site of the Washington Post, where all shades of opinion are welcome all the time, as they are on The Post's op-ed page (heavily populated by conservative commentators, among others) and our Sunday Outlook section.

As others have noticed here, this is beyond wrong, all the way to gross public dumb.

I knew Kaiser well when he, Joe Lieberman and I were all on the Editorial Board of the Yale Daily News. Kaiser was always a bit full of himself. And that tends to inhibit a fair-minded approach to the facts of any issue, including Iraq.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "My Friend, Gene McCarthy, 1916-2005"

Kaiser's use of the Viet Nam analogy is fatally flawed.

The U.S. had defeated North Viet Nam and "bombed" them to the peace table. North Viet Nam promised to respect the independence and soverignty of South Viet Nam. Although we withdrew our troops in late 1974, we still promised to provide necessary aid, and possible air support if North Viet Nam started to renege on its obligations.

When North Viet Nam, with aid from China and USSR started incursions into South Viet Nam, the Democrats passed laws that prohibited the US from providing ANY of the promised support.

To suggest that South Viet Nam could have survived, on its own, shows tremendous ignorance or a willingness to forget history, since the actual facts are hardly commendable to the Democrats.
Forget JFK line in his inagural speech where he proclaimed that the US would bear any burden and pay any price to support freedom ... now, the Democrats are willing to cut and run if the price tag is more than $1.98.

Mike

Way back in 1980, Robert G. Kaiser wrote a book, better put, a valentine, to the Soviet Union, that made clear his view that the USSR was here to stay, now and forever. We had better accomodate the Soviets, Kaiser made clear, and not provoke them by electing a reactionary like Ronald Reagan.

We elected the hellish Reagan, the Soviet Union is long since toast, and Robert G. Kaiser might as well bed down with Cindy Sheehan. In a ditch, in Texas.

May the rocks fall on them both. Screw them, they're trash and nothing more.

I swear that the next time some ignorant media type compares Iraq to Vietnam, I am not going to beat them up, I will drive to the college professor responsible for teaching them logic and reasoning and slap the crap out of them. Furthermore, if necessary, I will dig up the appropriate bones and slap them around. There is simply no excuse for such lazy thinking. Bias, I understand, as I am biased against that piece of trash Beretta 9mm and would much prefer my .45 caliber 1911 model. But the entire media world to be soooooo lazy. I cannot tolerate so such huge amounts from college graduates

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