The liberal media went into overdrive after President Bush said he was okay with Thomas Friedman’s comparison of what is currently happening in Iraq to the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam war. 

Friedman wrote in his New York Times column that “What we’re seeing there seems like the jihadist equivalent of the Tet offensive,” Friedman wrote, adding that jihadist Web sites frequently state how it is critical that the media war parallel the armed effort.

When Bush was asked about this by ABC’s George Stephanopolous he responded by saying “He could be right. … There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election.” and continued on in speaking of the terrorists that “They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort.”

The media has interpreted these comments to mean that like Lyndon Johnson in 1968 , Bush will cave into public opinion.  What they leave out either as a result of an inherent bias or ignorance is that the Tet Offensive was a huge military victory for the U.S.  The North Vietnamese and Vietcong armies lost about 58,000 troops while we sustained losses closer to 4,000.  How much more lopsided could it have been. Yet when the news hit the newspapers and airwaves it came out as a loss.  We had the communists beaten and the media let them get away.  The NVA and VC lost the battle, but won the propaganda war thanks to our journalists. 

Yes the Iraq war is like the Tet Offensive, but this time hopefully the Bush administration won’t make the same mistakes as LBJ and let the media run the war.  That would be disastrous. 

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