David Sirota notices President Middle-Man picking up on the Vietnam War stab-in-the-back nonsense

David Sirota looks at President Obama's Memorial Day speech in Dissent over war isn't disrespecting the troops SFgate.com 06/01/2012. And he finds in in his role of President Middle-Man, this time repeating of the the worst prowar revisionist themes on the Vietnam War:

Out of all the status-quo-sustaining fables we create out of military history, none are as enduring as Vietnam War myths. Desperate to cobble a pro-war cautionary tale out of a blood-soaked tragedy, we keep reimagining the loss in Southeast Asia not as a policy failure but as the product of an America that dishonored returning troops.

Incessantly echoed by Hollywood and Washington since the concurrent successes of the "Rambo" and Reagan franchises, this legend was the central theme of President Obama's Memorial Day speech kicking off the government's commemoration of the Vietnam conflict.

"You were often blamed for a war you didn't start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor," he told veterans. "You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened."

This is a classic case of Obama accepting a Republican framing of an issue. And in this case it's a framing based on pseudohistory.

Tom Tomorrow's classic jab at Obama's "postpartisan" politics

Tags: barack obama

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