Last week I noted that Frank Rich had deviated from his template of comparing something about the Bush administration to Watergate, Vietnam or McCarthyism. Well, Rich was back in top form this Sunday, delivering on two out of three:

The Vietnamization of Bush’s Vacation
Another week in Iraq, another light at the end of the tunnel. On Monday President Bush saluted the Iraqis for “completing work on a democratic constitution” even as the process was breaking down yet again. But was anyone even listening to his latest premature celebration?… [snip]
IN the new pitch there are no mushroom clouds. Instead we get McCarthyesque rhetoric accusing critics of being soft on the war on terrorism, which the Iraq adventure has itself undermined. Before anyone dare say Vietnam, the president, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld drag in the historian David McCullough and liken 2005 in Iraq to 1776 in America – and, by implication, the original George W. to ours. Before you know it, Ahmad Chalabi will be rehabilitated as Ben Franklin.

Bravo, Frank Rich. I’m still waiting for the column in which he manages to work in all three.