Watch history repeat itself

Go watch this video. Now go read this, especially the middle part.

I'll even give you an excerpt to tempt you:

No doubt the Iranians have studied this, and have visited North Vietnam to see exactly how it was done. The same pattern is emerging here - Democrats are absolutely livid at Maliki. They are infuriated by him. It is a good bet they are receiving some sort of perverted backdoor intelligence that leads them to believe a lot of stuff that is not true.

And much of what the Democrats believe is simply not true:

This favorable view, however, did not prevail for long, largely as a result of distorted reporting by Mr. Halberstam on the pagoda raids that would shape the opinions of many Americans. According to a dispatch filed by Mr. Halberstam on August 23, during the evacuation of Tu Dam pagoda in Hue, at least 30 people had been killed and at least 70 wounded. This report created an international stir and caused the United Nations to send an investigative commission to South Vietnam. The commission did not reach Saigon until October 24, by which time the alleged total of Buddhist dead during the pagoda raids had shriveled to four. Upon investigation, commission members actually met and interviewed all four of these monks. Mr. Halberstam omitted his false claim from his subsequent famous book "The Best and the Brightest" (1972), but by then the damage had been done.

Can you say Jamil Hussein?

If you're not reading Penraker every day, you're missing the most underrated blog in the sphere. The guy gets a hundred hits a day and he ought to be a major player. No justice.