Cuz Every Time We Look At Baghdad, We See Antietem

This week, Newt Gingrich wrote an op -ed for the Wall Street Journal inwhich he compared the current President's situation with that of Abraham Lincoln two years into the Civil War. According to Newt, both men faced a public that was souring on the war the current President had committed to. While it is indeed difficult to even think of W and Lincoln in the same sentence, in the wake of the article (and Condi Rice's similar metaphor) we should further examine the parallels between the wars:

The South started the Civil War by declaring their secession and firing on Fort Sumpter. Iraq started our invasion by... making us feel vaguely uneasy.

The South was led by a leader, Jefferson Davis, elected by the Confederacy. Iraq was led by a leader, Saddam Hussein ... installed by the United States.

During the Civil War, the North fought a highly organized Confederate Army. In Iraq, the Iraqi Army gave up the ghost and we are fighting a guerrilla war against civilians.

At the outset of the Civil War the South had a thriving agrarian economy. At the outset of the Iraq invasion, Iraq had been impoverished by years of UN sanctions.

During the Civil War, the leaders of the Confederacy were in the South. During the Iraq invasion, the leaders of Al Queda were ... somewhere else.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln delivered a stirring eulogy to the war's casualties at Gettysburg. During the invasion of Iraq, President Bush refused to visit the graves of his fallen soldiers.

President Lincoln fought the Civil War because he believed that a house divided between North and South, slave and free, cannot stand. President Bush invaded Iraq and started a civil war that has divided the country among religious and ethnic lines.

During the Civil War, Lincoln almost suffered a nervous breakdown and often stayed up through the night monitoring telegraph dispatches from the front. During the Iraq War, President Bush has spent more time on vacation than any of his predecessors in war or at peace.