If there was a Republican who was unelectable in 1967, it was Richard “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” Nixon.

Following his surprise loss to Pat Brown in 1962, he signed off with a level of nastiness that seemed to be the final nail in his political career.

But 2 years later, he was president of the United States.

He was President because Lyndon Baines Johnson, and his Vice President, and designated heir, Hubert Humphrey, were unable to recognize reality with regard to the Vietnam war, at least publicly, because they felt the need to appear hawkish to take away the perennial Republican talking point that Democrats were “soft” on defense.

Well, we are seeing it yet again with Obama, who is poised to let Afghanistan define his presidency.

It’s actually worse than Vietnam, because Afghanistan has never been a viable nation state, but rather is a void on the map where neither the Russians nor the British were able to maintain power in their “Great Game” for that part of the world, and we are in there supporting one side.

Additionally, we have the fact that, as mind boggling as it sounds, the regime that we are supporting is even more corrupt and ineffective than any that we ever supported in South Vietnam, and that we also have religious overtones in this conflict that were largely lacking in the ‘Nam.

And now we have one of Obama’s biggest supporters in the Senate, John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is saying that we need to get out now:

One of the Obama administration’s key allies in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), is breaking with the president on Afghanistan and saying the strategy in the war needs to be revised. The development, coming from someone who was once a strong backer of Obama’s decision to increase troops in Afghanistan, could deal a significant blow to support for the administration.

“What I don’t want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place,” said Kerry in an interview with the Boston Globe about his evolving views on the war. “That would be like Vietnam. And that is what I am determined to try to prevent.”

Kerry, according to the Globe, is calling for “a more limited focus and fewer American troops than the 155,000 that are in place now.” In the coming months, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be holding a series of oversight hearings on the Obama administration’s strategy.

Kerry is a creature of the Senate, and so is mild in his disapprobation of the current policy, particularly since he shares a political party with Obama, but this is very clear. He is saying that we need to get the hell out now.

He’s right too.  Afghanistan is not called the “Graveyard of Empires” for nothing.

I do not expect that Obama will take this advice to heart though:  He is too concerned with political calculation, where he thinks that being hawkish will take away a Republican talking point (sound familiar?), and is simply unwilling to override the desires of careerist generals in the Pentagon, for whom the war is a path to advancement.