Fresh Rasmussen Poll: Democrats See Iraq As Vietnam, Republicans Don't

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Pollster Scott Rasmussen has found a deep partisan divide exists over the Iraq-as-Vietnam theme. A vast majority of Republicans say there is no way to compare the two wars. Democrats, however, are struck by a sense of having heard it all before -- that the string of reports coming daily from U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad reads distressingly like it could have been scripted by the U.S. headquarters in Saigon during the 1960s and 1970s.

Rasmussen contacted 1,200 likely voters across the nation by telephone August 24-26. His polling began the day after President Bush raised the Vietnam echo in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention last week. Overall, 47% of Americans say Iraq is like Vietnam; 44% say not.

"Republicans, by a 61% to 29% comparison, say Iraq is not like Vietnam. Democrats, by a 59% to 33% margin, say they are similar. Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters say that our biggest mistake in Vietnam was getting involved in the first place. Forty-tow (42%) say the mistake was using the wrong strategy to accomplish the nation's goals. The numbers are strikingly similar for Iraq. Forty-nine percent *49%) say it was a mistake for the U.S. to get involved in the first place, while 41% say the wrong strategy was used."

A question: How many Americans alive today were actually around during the Vietnam era? That war ended in 1975 with a communist offensive that brought the fall of Saigon and the collapse of a U.S.-backed but remarkably ineffective South Vietnamese government, which struggled for years to gain popular support. American soldiers lost their lives in South Vietnam in places called Hamburger Hill and the Rockpile.

Here's what Phil Caputo, an author who served as a U.S. Marine officer in Vietnam, had to say about his escape from Saigon as it fell. The words are from Caputo's memoir, A Rumor Of War:

"My mind shot back a decade, to that day we had marched into Vietnam, swaggering, confident, and full of idealism. We had believed we were there for a high moral purpose. But somehow our idealism was lost, our morals corrupted and the purpose forgotten. . .

"There was some applause as the aircraft settled on the flight deck and as we filed out, a marine slapped me on the back and said, 'Welcome home. Bet you're glad to be out of there.' I was, of course. I asked him which outfit he was from. 'Ninth MEB,' he answered. The 9th Expeditionary Brigade, the same unit with which I had landed at Danang. But the men who belonged to it now seemed a good deal more cynical than we who had belonged to it ten years before. The marine looked at the faint blue line marking the Vietnamese coast and said, 'Well, that's one country we won't have to give billions of dollars to anymore.'

The next day -- April 30, 1975 -- that war officially ended.

Former Dem Sen. Tom Eagleton Dies: Helped End Vietnam War

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Tom Eagleton, who died today (see family obit below), briefly was the vice presidential running mate of Sen. George McGovern on the 1972 Democratic ticket, but was dropped because he had been treated for mental illness. McGovern famously said he was 1,000% behind Eagleton, then dumped him from the peace ticket that was targeted for dirty tricks by the Nixon White House in the scandal now known as Watergate. An Eagleton amendment ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He also sponsored important environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act, and was deeply involved in creating the Pell Grant program for college financial aid. Eagleton's final act of public service -- he donated his body to science.

The obituary being distributed by his family in St. Louis follows:

"U.S. Senator from 1968 Until 1987. Wrote the Eagleton Amendment that Ended U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War.

"ST. LOUIS, March 4 -- Former United States
Senator Thomas F. Eagleton died this morning at St. Mary's hospital in Richmond Heights, Missouri. He was 77 years old. Senator Eagleton had been in declining health for several years. The cause of death was a combination of heart, respiratory and other problems that overwhelmed his weakened system.

"Thomas F. Eagleton was born in St. Louis on September 4, 1929, the
second son of prominent attorney Mark D. Eagleton and Zitta Swanson Eagleton. He was raised near Tower Grove Park. Eagleton was educated at Saint Louis Country Day School, Amherst College, Harvard Law School and Oxford University. He served in the United States Navy.

"In 1956, Eagleton was elected Circuit Attorney of the city of St. Louis at the age of 27. He was elected Attorney General of Missouri in 1960 (the youngest person ever to hold that office); Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1964; and United States Senator from Missouri in 1968. He was 39 years old at the time of his election to the Senate. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974 and 1980. In 1986 he declined to seek re-election.

"In the Senate, Eagleton was one of the principal sponsors of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, the bills that are generally regarded as the foundation of modern environmental protection. On May 15, 1973, Senator Eagleton successfully offered an amendment to a defense appropriations bill to cut off funding for the bombing of Cambodia, effectively ending America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Eagleton subsequently described the passage of this amendment as the proudest moment of his career.

"In the area of education, Senator Eagleton was a principal Senate
proponent of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to improve educational opportunities for children with disabilities. He was a co-author of the bill that created Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (now known as "Pell Grants") for college students. He was a principal Senate proponent of the creation of the National Institute on Aging."

"In 1991 Senator Eagleton joined the board of the Truman Library in
Independence and led a successful effort to raise new funds and revitalize the library. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Senator Eagleton to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. As chairman of FANS Inc. Senator Eagleton led the successful civic effort to relocate the Los Angeles Rams football team to St. Louis in 1995. He remained politically active on behalf of many candidates and issues. In 2006 he was active in the campaign for Amendment 2 to the Missouri Constitution to protect stem
cell research. At the time of his death, Senator Eagleton was working on a personal memoir of his career in public service. In accordance with his wishes, Senator Eagleton's body has been donated to the Washington University School of Medicine for medical research. Plans for a memorial service are pending and will be announced shortly. It was Senator Eagleton's wish that memorial contributions in lieu of flowers be directed either to Catholic Charities of St. Louis or to the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC. "

Spitting Myth Prof's School: Yes, The Spit Flew

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- A red-hot debate is swirling on the Internet and talk shows about the Vietnam-era recollections of veterans who say they were spat upon. Some dismiss the spitting as urban myth, and they often cite College of the Holy Cross professor Jerry Lembcke as the chief debunker. His 1998 book, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, published by New York University Press is the research work they often rely upon.

But the 2,700-student Jesuit university in Worcester, Mass., where Lembcke is employed, isn't totally sold on the idea that the spit never flew. In fact, it has said publicly that Holy Cross graduates were targets.

In April 1999, the school's official publication, Holy Cross Magazine, did a Vietnam retrospective and named two alums who were spit upon. The article is called "The War That Never Ended." One of the Holy Cross alums, Steve Bowen, is a 1965 graduate. He recalled it happened to him in Los Angeles and the spit landed on the front of his shirt. "She was so good looking, I just laughed," Bowen was quoted as saying about the incident.

And there was a lot about Jim MacDougald, a 1951 Holy Cross alum who also recalled being spit upon. MacDougald, with five kids, rose to the rank of Air Force colonel before retiring. Holy Cross published their stories and there is no evidence it suspects they made them up or lied. In fact, they are still available for all the world to view on the college's online portal.

Lembcke, too, is in the same Vietnam retrospective. He doesn't deny that vets were treated badly, and he doesn't deny that spitting took place.

"Many veterans have responded to my book with gratitude that I have set the story straight. Others have challenged my thesis, claiming to have been treated badly when they returned from war. Few of the latter stories, however, lend validity to the myth that it was anti-war activists who were hostile to vets," Lembcke said in the Holy Cross alumni mag article in April 1999. "Upon questioning, vets will often concede the hostility came from older veterans, the Veteran's Administration hospital, or simply a drunk in a bar. The historical fact is that the peace movement saw veterans as potential allies and reached out to them."

The feature article from the same April 1999 issue about the two Holy Cross alums who said they were spit at is HERE.

And Lembcke, a Vietnam vet who became active in the peace movement, is HERE. The stories were published seven years ago, long before the current Iraq war, long before the current anti-war movement existed, and long before the current flap exploded, fanned by some people who claim that those who remember spitting stories from decades past are fabricators.