Many thanks to Blaster for reminding me of this particularly inane question during the President’s press conference:
Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties sent this country on a mission of a regime change in Vietnam. Fifty thousand Americans died and that regime is still there in Hanoi and hasn’t harmed or threatened a single American since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and daughters of the Americans who served in the Vietnam to assure them you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?
“Well, I can point out to you that we actually went to Viet Nam to prevent a regime change — the overthrow of the Saigon government by the Soviet-backed one in Hanoi.
“And I can also point out that the concern was not that North Vietnam was going to nuke its neighbors, or sell biowarfare weapons to terrorists to use against us, or dominate all of the surrounding nations and so blackmail the world’s oil supply, so noting that the Hanoi regime hasn’t ‘harmed or threatened a single American since the war ended’ (except for those folks who are now Americans who fled South Vietnam) doesn’t really mean much of anything, now, does it?
“Would that suffice to convince anyone we’re not going down the same path in Iraq? Then how about I mention Yugoslavia and Afghanistan? Next question.”
Not that that’s what he did say. But he could have.