Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post cogently makes this point in
this OP/ED.
Because there are no massive demonstrations, the Republicans can't point at the protestors and scream "UnAmerican".
People are forced to look at the mess that is Iraq, and not some guy with a 12 foot tall Uncle Sam puppet.
In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq. Those two facts, I suspect, are connected.
. . .
These figures already match the polling in the middle and late years of the war in Vietnam . . . But there was one other crucial finding: 77 percent disapproved of the antiwar demonstrations, which were then at their height.
That disapproval was key to Nixon's political strategy. He didn't so much defend the war as attack its critics. . .
. . .
Which is why, . . . the absence of an antiwar movement is proving to be a huge political problem for the Bush administration, . . . The administration has no one to demonize.