Nearly every prediction about this war has proved wrong. Americans were led to believe it would be over in a weekend, that U.S. air power would “shock and awe” the enemy, that Iraqi troops would lay down their arms and civilians would welcome us as conquering heroes. Instead we’re embroiled in a conflict that looks like a bad remake of Vietnam with an enemy that fights in civilian dress. The bravado of a week ago is gone. “It’s out of our hands,” sighs a White House aide. In an echo of Vietnam, military leaders say they are hamstrung by the rules of engagement. It’s a tough sell to a 21-year-old and even his commander that the political cost of shooting people who may or may not turn out to be civilians is too high. “It’s the price you pay when you’re a superpower going up against a fourth-rate military power,” says a Senate Democrat. “You have a higher standard to uphold.”

I defy Clift to identify one White House source or any military leader who predicted that the was would be over in a weekend. After two weeks of unprecedented speed and success, she is in complete denial of the effectiveness of this campaign. Many times, Clift and her ilk have raised that old spectre of Vietnam as a comparison, however inappropriate that comparison may be. I have read and heard the war in Vietnam raised on so many occassions, I half expect General Westmoreland to saunter up to the podium at the daily CENTCOM press conference and start spouting statistics on enemy casualties. Every day on any blog one can read stories of liberated Iraqis greeting coalition troops, albeit cautiously. Their trepidation can be understood, as they have been cowed so many times before by Hussein and his thugs. But this same skepticism from the likes of Clift is inexcusable, and it betrays an inability to let the past go. I suspect Eleanor wants to hold on to Vietnam because it affords her the right to spout her righteous indignation at the US government and military. After a while, though, it simply becomes a tired refrain, this need to see the US as a warmongering enemy. Indeed, it appears that Clift is living in a parallel universe. What she hasn't figured out yet is that that parallel universe is in fact the real world, and she is adrift in a universe the rest of us left behind long ago.