Obama’s proposed plan for the war in Afghanistan generated a significant amount of opposition from bloggers on both sides of the political fence. And as much as he’d like to discount any similarities, political pundits have already started comparing the current campaign to the poster child of modern war failures: the Vietnam War.

From President Obama’s Address on the War in Afghanistan:

First, there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we’re better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. I believe this argument depends on a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border. To abandon this area now — and to rely only on efforts against al Qaeda from a distance — would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.

Frank Rich, Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times, commented that 30,000 troops is a half-hearted investment for attaining true success in Afghanistan:

If the enemy in Afghanistan today threatens the American homeland as the Viet Cong never did, we should be all in, according to Obama’s logic. So why aren’t we? The answer is not merely that Afghans don’t want us as occupiers. It’s that such a mission would require a commensurate national sacrifice. One big difference between the war in Vietnam and the war in Afghanistan that the president conspicuously left unmentioned on Tuesday is the draft. Given that conscription is not about to be revived, we’d have to spend money, lots more money, to recruit the troops needed for the full effort Obama’s own argument calls for.

Christian Parenti, contributing editor at The Nation and Playboy, saw motives mired in political defense:

The real goals of the Afghanistan escalation are domestic and electoral. Like Lyndon Johnson who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans.

Others disagree. General David Petraeus warned pundits against using “‘history by analogy’ as an excuse not to come to grips with the intricacies of Afghanistan itself,” as reported in a Newsweek article entitled, “Obama’s Vietnam”:

Some problems do not have a solution, or any good solution. Two studies of the Afghanistan mess cochaired by retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, now President Obama’s national-security adviser, asserted last year that America cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan. Who wants to be the American president who allows jihadists to claim that they defeated and drove out American forces? Daniel Ellsberg, the government contractor who leaked the Pentagon papers, used to say about Vietnam, “It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam.” The same is all too true for Afghanistan.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, political analyst and social issues expert, contrasted the two wars by citing President Johnson’s initial support for Vietnam:

In one sense Obama is right to decry any comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam. Congress and the public enthusiastically backed Johnson on Vietnam until things went bad. That’s a luxury Obama won’t have with Afghanistan.

Bob Herbert, Op-Ed Columnist for the NY Times, placed responsibility of war misguidance on the previous administration:

Afghanistan is not Vietnam. There was every reason for American forces to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. But that war was botched and lost by the Bush crowd, and Barack Obama does not have a magic wand now to make it all better.

Finally, in the LA Times:

Afghanistan served as the base for terrorists who attacked American citizens on American soil, and it harbored their associates afterward. In Vietnam, vaguer premonitions of superpower balance and a “domino effect” caused Kennedy to dedicate troops (after President Eisenhower had refused). Those same fears, as well as the threat to American prestige and domestic political pressures, caused presidents Johnson and Nixon to order escalations of the Vietnam War. The provocation in 2001 does not justify a blind or endless war in Afghanistan, but this conflict, at least at its outset, was a war of necessity; Vietnam was not.

Are the comparisons anything new? No. In 2005, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll compared support for the Iraq War with that of the Vietnam War, stating that over 50% of those polled favored a timed withdrawal. To draw even more similarities, the poll also suggested that only 38% of people felt going into Iraq was “worth it.” Similarly, a CBS News Poll conducted on Obama’s performance in Afghanistan resulted in 38% support as well.

(David Horsey, Tribune Media Services)

Last week, Andrew Sullivan published an open letter to the readers of The Daily Dish explaining the Palin-induced downtime of their site:

This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it – and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided – is a bewildering task. She is a deeply disturbed person which makes this work of fiction and fact all the more challenging to read. And the fact that she is now the leader of the Republican party and a potential presidential candidate, makes this process of deconstruction an important civil responsibility.

Michelle Malkin suggested he try Zyprexa for his “psychosis.”

Politics is a divisive issue, and this has never been more true than now. With the release of Sarah Palin’s memoir entitled, Going Rogue, pundits left and right are busy tearing her apart or placing her on a pedestal. Supporters hail her as a no-nonsense independent leader ready to bring us back to our core American roots. Detractors… well, you already read what some of them say.

“I’m sorry, a memoir?” asked celebrity gossip blog, GlossLip, “It’s not like she has this great history behind her life as a hockey Mom and ex Governor of Alaska. And certainly her political career has been beyond laughable. So the question now is… will Palin’s book end up on the bestseller list? Or go over like a fart in church?”

Can’t it be both?

You can certainly sell big and raise a stink at the same time. After all, since its Nov. 17 release, Going Rogue has been selling like hotcakes back when flapjacks were in fashion. Let’s face it – she’s a hot commodity. Who doesn’t know someone who was Sarah Palin for Halloween?

The LA Times called Palin’s book, “a shot at redemption as well as revenge“:

Palin is angry about being depicted as a clotheshorse during the campaign, angry about getting stuck with $50,000 in legal fees related to the vetting process for vice president, angry about being “bottled up” from the press by McCain staffers and angry about what she sees as unsympathetic treatment by the media, as personified by CBS News anchor Katie Couric, whom she accused of badgering, condescension and bias.

The “non-partisan” Washington Insider commented on the profitability of her book:

In the end, will it matter for Palin? I don’t think so. If Michelle Malkin’s “Culture of Corruption” could top the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks, surely Palin will top it for at least one week. Palin’s book merely needs to produce juicy gossip and place her in potentially competitive 2012 states to be a “hit,” and it’ll do all of that. Early reports claim that the book skimps on policy, which is the one area commentators and possible 2012 rivals always say she needs more polish, but they don’t really mean it.

But her supporters seem happy. Conservative blog, Hot Air, praised the volume of her book sales, calling the print run increase to 2.5 million copies, “amazing.” And this doesn’t include sales in San Francisco (hey, guys!), where many book stores are refusing to sell the book. Correspondingly, SFGate suggests that the Bay may not be “maverick enough to read Palin book.”

Amongst her fan base, Palin enjoys much of the type of support that even Obama employs – demographic-specific likability and brilliant pop marketing:

Palin spoke for only two minutes before walking inside to sign books for the next three hours. At the conclusion of the event, as soon as Palin walked out, dozens of young children ran forward from the back of the crowd to try to get a glimpse of her, returning to their parents with shouts of “I saw her, I saw her!” Tony Downs, a local police officer who came with his wife, surmised that Palin’s message resonates because she is “not a politician.” “She’s not from Washington,” he said. “She hasn’t been corrupted.”

Not surprisingly, the progressive media (or “the liberal elite,” depending on who you ask) was notably more vocal in their opposition. Geoffrey Dunn of the Huffington Post was quick to point the “first ten lies from ‘Going Rogue’” including the fact that the book was mostly ghostwritten by writers unacknowledged on the cover.

The book even elicited harsh criticism from Deepak Chopra, saying,

A recent Gallup poll showed that 67% of responders don’t want Palin to run for president. Fear of Palin is ill-advised on two counts. First, fear is what the shadow wants. Without it, the shadow has no power. Second, the left needs to learn how to win graciously. The current upheaval in American society, which has been an enormous threat on many fronts, called forth a president and a constituency that knows how to handle crisis. The voices of sanity are prevailing. The solutions that have emerged on all fronts — economic, social, and international — represent the best in the American character.

And then there’s the issue of Going Rouge: An American Nightmare, the spin-off mockery saga accidentally promoted on Fox News in place of her actual book. And they weren’t the only ones making that mistake…

How is that for fact checking?

Oops.