This morning’s tabs…

A war against an enemy whose threat to us remains a matter of debate. The need to commit troops indefinitely. Growing doubts at home. As the American involvement in Iraq has become a commitment of unknown duration, comparisons to the Vietnam War are more and more common.

Whether or not the comparison proves valid, there is another historical parallel to the Vietnam War, one that involves a group of intellectuals responsible for articulating the rationale for the Iraq war. Among the enduring legacies of the earlier era was the split between liberals who opposed the war and the small splinter group that would become known as the neoconservatives. The group’s decision to support the Vietnam War — or at least to oppose those who opposed it — was a shift that would lead them to a new level of power and influence.

The words tumble out, the hands gesture urgently, as Jonathan Chait explains why he hates George W. Bush.

It’s Bush’s radical policies, says the 31-year-old New Republic writer, and his unfair tax cuts, and his cowboy phoniness, and his favors for corporate cronies, and his heist in Florida, and his dishonesty about his silver-spoon upbringing, and, oh yes, the way he walks and talks.

Welcome to Iraq, home of the Whopper.

Deep inside Baghdad International Airport, past a vehicle search, a body search and four checkpoints, soldiers are lined up for burgers and fries. They have come by plane from Mosul, 220 miles north, for onion rings. They have picked up Chicken Royale sandwiches while picking up buddies flying back from a two-week home leave. They have begged and borrowed Humvees, making up any excuse for a trip to the airport and a reminder of what the pink mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise oozing from a fresh Whopper tastes like.