Preaching To The Choir

The liberal CarpetBagger Report quoted from Historian Robert Dallek in a post on August 22nd. Dallek was sharply critical of President Bush:

“We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,” he said.

“What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,” he continued. “We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.”

Despite the fact that Dallek missed Bush's point (that by leaving Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were subject to mass killings, torture, and imprisonment, as Iraqis will suffer if we withdraw), I have some history with Professor Dallek. He's a nice enough guy, but not an objective observer of history.

As it turns out, I actually took a class with Professor Robert Dallek my senior year of college. He admitted in class that he was a “died in the wool” party guy.

He wasn’t talking about the Republican party.

Mr. Dallek also frequently went on anti-Cheney tirades.

I respect his research, and his long career, but his is hardly the impartial, objective professional opinion that can be held up to the light.