Out by 08?
Via Wolcott, I located an essay on the election by Immanuel Wallerstein. Wallerstein is the Director of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at Binghamton University, State University of New York The Braudel Center was founded in September 1976 to engage in the analysis of large-scale social change over long periods of historical time.
Wallerstein writes:
By now, it is obvious that the United States has lost the war, irremediably. The U.S. objective in Iraq was to put in power a stable, friendly government, and one that would allow U.S. military bases. It is clear now that if it is stable, it won't be friendly. And if it is friendly, it won't be stable...I very much doubt we will be out of Iraq by the 2008 elections. Not only would such an outcome contradict my perceptions of President Bush but would also be inconsistent with history.The one thing that is sure is that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq as we approach the 2008 elections. The voters and the military made that clear in the 2006 election.
The last time the electorate rejected American involvement in a war was in 1968. After having won more than 61% of the popular vote, as well as 44 states in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson was humiliated in the 1968 New Hampshire primary by anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy. The humiliation was so great that Johnson chose not to even run for re-election.
As hard as it is for those of a later generation to believe, Richard Nixon ran in 1968 as the anti-war candidate. Nixon promised that "new leadership will end the war" in Vietnam. A reporter characterized Nixon's position as having a "secret plan to end the war." Nixon did not object to that characterization, tied Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey to the war policies of Johnson, and won a close election.
The electorate clearly rejected the Vietnam War in 1968. The rise of Gene McCarthy and later, Bobby Kennedy, the rejection of Lyndon Johnson, and the election of Richard Nixon are all evidence of such rejection. Public opinion polls show that by August of 1968, support for the war failed to attain majority support in any age category.
After the electorate spoke in 1968, we still remained in Vietnam for six more years. Actually getting out was not as simple as the electorate voting against the war. A similar result suggests that not only will Iraq be an issue in the 2008 presidential race, it could well be a factor in 2010 and possibly 2012. Now that is a depressing thought.
Comments
I don't understand that quip that Johnson was so embarassed by NH that he didn't run when in fact he was only a write in candidate who had already said he was not running. Maybe a little fact checking would help.
Posted by: bronco214 | November 20, 2006 10:08 PM
Also, without Googleing, I don't think we got out of Nam until '75- that's 7 years not 6.
Posted by: bronco214 | November 20, 2006 10:12 PM
Congress cut off all funding for the war in 1974. I remember the day quite well. It was the just before Christmas.The fall of Saigon happened in 1975.
Johnson was the sitting President of the United States. The poor showing in New Hampshire was a direct cause of his not running for President. I remember that quite well, too. He announced he was not running at the same time he announced that the bombing would stop. It was inthe early spring. The fact that he was a write in candidate is irrelevant to the discussion as he was expected to win an overwhelming victory. New Hampshire was perceived, correctly, as a massive political defeat for Johnson.
Yes, a little googling is a good thing but there is really no substitute for having lived through the history while avidly interested in it.
Posted by: dwight | November 20, 2006 10:26 PM
Hey, I know Wallerstein! He was a friend of one of my undergraduate professors, and came to speak to our class on a couple of occasions. We used his original work on world-systems analysis in my Sociology of Third World Systems class (must have been good, as I remember it now twenty years later.) Great mind then, still obviously is.
Posted by: MBW | November 21, 2006 12:34 AM