E-mailers are protesting my citation of Bush’s remark on the difference between Vietnam and Iraq being the free elections in the latter. South Vietnam, they say, had a freely elected government too. You really can’t compare the two. The freely elected Diem was deposed, and the freely elected Thieu ended up being the military’s candidate and getting reelected with a dubiously high percentage — something like 90 percent — of the vote. Granted, I’m talking about a period of about 8 years’ time in Vietnam, while Iraq’s elections only began 18 months ago. But still, the democratization of Vietnam was not a central issue in that war as it is in this war.