George W. Bush's invoking the Vietnam withdrawal and post-World War II American occupation of Japan to support the continued occupation of Iraq is of-course laughable on its academic merits. [Via the Poltico, see one Bush-cited historian's knocking down such a comparison in November 2002.]

To the anti-intellectual and authoritarian Bush administration, facts and history are malleable instruments that can be changed to fit whatever ideological and political objective is on the administration docket.

But the well-crafted and politically risky speech is revealing of the desperate situation in which the anxious administration fabulists and fantasists find themselves.

They well know that if the invasion and occupation were to continue into the 2008 elections and be perceived by the electorate in anything resembling reality, the war party would face losses approaching the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater election.