THIS PASSAGE from Larry King’s interview of Senator Ted Kennedy would seem to fatally undermine claims that Kennedy’s Vietnam remarks weren’t opportunistic defeatism, but merely a statement that the Bush Administration was dishonest about war:

KING: We’re back with Senator Kennedy.

You said today that Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam, and this country needs a new president. Vietnam was started under a Democratic administration.

How do you compare the two?

KENNEDY: We’re facing a quagmire in Iraq, just as we faced a quagmire in Vietnam. We didn’t understand what we were getting ourselves into in Vietnam. We didn’t understand what we were doing in — in Iraq.

Kennedy does go on to add “We had misrepresentations about what we were able to do militarily in Vietnam. I think we are finding that out in Iraq, as well.” But as the “as well” indicates, this is clearly secondary. As Eugene Volokh noted earlier, the Vietnam bit is pretty obviously about losing — and as I noted earlier myself, if Kennedy really didn’t mean that by what he said, then he really isn’t up to speaking in public.