Can Obama Learn From History?

The year was 1966; a President who had been elected in a landslide was very quickly falling into disfavor with US voters. His handling of the Vietnam War had created a “credibility gap” between his stated goals in Indochina of standing against Communist incursions in the region, and the manner in which he pursued the war itself, basically staging what was little more than a holding action, which achieved nothing,and led to steadily mounting US casualties.

At home, things weren't much better; mounting deficits from the tax and spend policies which fueled his “Great Society”, and the lack of great public support for it's programs was rapidly disenfranchising American voters. By the end of the year, despite a half-million vote margin in the election of 1964, the Democratic Governor of Missouri, Warren E. Hearnes, predicted Johnson would lose the state by 100,000 votes, due to "Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and... taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs...”

In the Congressional elections later that year, the Republicans gained three seats in the Senate and 47 in the House, strengthening the Conservative Coalition, comprised of Republicans and conservative/moderate Democrats, and effectively writing the swan song for the “Great Society”

If we jump forward to 2009, I think the parallels with the current administration are striking and undeniable. The US is engaged in unpopular wars on two fronts; wars in which the Obama administration's actions seems indecisive and where statements made to the public don't seem to be in concert with what's actually happening in the field.

Casualties are mounting, and yet we are again, staging what has become merely a holding action, with the President afraid to either fully commit or pull our military forces out of harm's way. In the words of George Santana, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This President not only has not learned, but appears to be wholly oblivious.

After being elected by a huge margin in 2008, public support is rapidly dwindling, as deficits and spending continue to rise almost exponentially, driven by unpopular programs such as the banking bailouts, Cap & Trade legislation and the administration's obsession with forcing health care reforms through Congress, the impact of which is difficult to predict, beyond the certainty that it will drive spending and deficits even higher, and continue to move moderate Congressional Democrats closer to the right.

With Congressional elections a scant 13 months away, from here, it looks like “Deva Vu all over again...”