Snooze-A-Pa-Loser 2006

That droning sound you heard recently was the reemergence of former Vice President and insomnia cure Al Gore. Not content to take the initiative in creating the Internet or being the inspiration for "Love Story," Gore has taken a bold step forward and said...the Iraq war has been a failure.

On a recent edition of "Today," Gore was asked to give his opinions on the Iraq war and he called it "the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States" and said it was "worse than a civil war." Gore went on to say this:

I would urge the President to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for his mistake and instead recognizing that it is not about him. It’s about our country.

This from the man who put the country through the Florida recount fiasco in 2000 in spite of several recounts being done showing he lost.

Gore's comments strike me as odd, not just because they reveal his purely partisan position on the war, but because they show just how out of touch Gore is. It's not like Gore was that tethered to reality to begin with, but let's review some numbers.

Our involvement in Vietnam related to the Vietnam war lasted from 1945 to 1975 and cost us 58,000 lives. That's a shade over 1933 deaths per year.

Our involvement in Iraq related to the second Iraqi war has been going on since 2003 and has cost us around 3000 lives. Rounding up because it's so close to the 4 year mark, that's around 750 deaths per year.

And 750 is almost 39% of 1933.

So, a conflict that has not even equaled 40% of the annual deaths of Vietnam is a bigger strategic failure? I don't buy it, Al, and those of us who pay attention don't either. And I know of a few other people who also don't buy it. Maybe you've heard of them, Al.

They're called the United States military.

Yes, Al, our fighting men and women have a vastly different view of the Iraq situation because they're actually there and able to see how things are progressing. And from what they're saying, things are going far better than you want to admit. Then again, if the truth were really your intent, you wouldn't be caught exaggerating, which is something that you were warned not to do during your failed 2000 Presidential campaign.

Some lessons are just harder to learn, huh Al?