Weekly Update (8/24/07)

Bush Uses Faulty Logic Again to Defend Iraq Plans
This week in a speech at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) convention, President Bush compared the Vietnam War to the war in Iraq in explaining why US troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq. His comments, which come after he has rejected such comparisons for years, drew criticism from many Democrats. Senator John Kerry stated, “Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars.”

Bush argued that when US troops left Vietnam millions of innocent citizens in the region were killed, and he linked the withdrawal of troops to the massive number of Vietnamese refugees and to genocide in Cambodia. The situation in Iraq and the greater Middle East could be similar, Bush argued, or even worse because the enemy would follow us home.

In truth, Bush should have been more responsive to Vietnam parallels much earlier. As David Gergen, advisor to four previous presidents stated, “By invoking Vietnam he raised the question, 'If you learned so much from history, how did you ever get us involved in another quagmire?'” Most see Vietnam and Iraq as similar because both were wars that the US should not have gotten into, and that proved to be major strategic mistakes. Using Vietnam, a war where over 58,000 Americans were killed, not to mention the aftereffects of the war on countless others, to advocate for more military action is unfathomable. Actually, the number of Americans killed would be a better indicator that the time to end the Iraq war is now.

In the same speech, Bush also continued to argue that the surge in Iraq is working, and claimed that he, “made a decision to send more troops into Iraq to provide enough security for reconciliation to have a time to take place.”

Bush Seeks to Limit Child Healthcare Coverage
The Bush administration is continuing to fight the expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and this week it set new standards which will make it much more difficult for states to extend coverage. Bush sees the program as a threat to the private insurance industry, and his priorities could jeopardize coverage for thousands. Bush has proposed that before states can expand benefits to children above 250% of the poverty level, they must have a 95% participation rate for children in the state below 200% of the poverty level. Health officials are outraged, saying that no states have this type of enrollment rate, and that such restrictions would make healthcare expansion basically impossible.

This Week's Polls
As Karl Rove leaves the White House, Gallup looked this week at how successful he had been at achieving what he had set out to do years ago: creating a long-lasting GOP majority. The findings show that today the Republican party is at a low point across America.

First, the number of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans is at the lowest point that it has been during Bush's presidency. Currently, 29% identify as Republicans, 33% as Democrats, and 37% as independents. The favorability rating of the GOP is also at one of its lowest points. Of those polled, 36% had a favorable opinion of the Republican party, while 56% had an unfavorable opinion; for the Democratic party, 51% were favorable and 41% were unfavorable. Additionally, Bush's approval ratings are continually low, and all of these factors seem to point to Rove's failure to meet his goal.