Using the parallel of Barack Obama making clear that the Iraq War was a "dumb war" started by George Bush that he was ending for the sake of his country, why didn't Richard Nixon follow this same path in the early 70s?
As the Pentagon papers came out and revealed that the government had been lying about much of the pretext for the war, it seems like a smart political move - especially for someone as opportunistic and calculating as Nixon - would be to lay the blame for the Vietnam debacle at the feet of LBJ and the Democrats.
Yet Nixon went on to insist that he had achieved "peace with honor" and that the returning soldiers and POWs had not fought, suffered, and died in vain. It just seems strange that he would steadfastly defend the reputation of a war he inherited and campaigned on ending.
Of course if I am misinterpreting anything about this narrative, please let me know as well.
By "peace with honor" I think Nixon meant this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Nixon_visit_to_China#Results Basically back then, China was a North Korea with 20 times the population and real nukes. Mao had once said "If all of China were nuked to dust by the Americans except only one village left, it's all the better. We could easily rebuild Communism from scratch!"(instead of "having to fixe the decayed Chinese society" with the Cultural Revolution)