Kerry's comment
By now, thanks to the Republican noise machine, you've probably heard that Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry "insulted" our troops in Iraq today in a speech in California during an appearance for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. Kerry did no such thing, although his statement could be misread that way without too much trouble. What he did do was commit a stupid gaffe in the last week of the midterm election campaign and give the Republicans an "issue" they can misrepresent to their Southern base to get their minds off boy-crazy Republican ex-Congressman Mark Foley.
It has always been a key Republican strategy to make support for the President's war policies synonymous with support for U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. It is the phoniest of equations, but the Democrats, especially Kerry, have let it be used against them. Of course we support the troops. That's why we want them to have the equipment they need but can't have because Bush has starved the American government of tax revenue. It's why we want them home in America and not getting killed in a pointless conflict that Bush started either for Iraq's oil or to avenge Saddam Hussein's attempt against his father's life, or both.
Anyone who thinks a war hero like Kerry, who served and was wounded on the ground in Vietnam, would deliberately insult the educational levels of the U.S. troops in Iraq probably also believes that weapons of mass destruction are still waiting to be found. Kerry intended this remarks to be a joke about Bush screwing up and getting the country stuck in Iraq. He violated an old rule of public speaking. If you're going to tell a joke, especially a pointed one, about Bush or anyone else, rehearse it a few times so it comes out right. Don't wing it. Keep it simple.
What he said backfired so badly because it touched a very raw nerve in America. The Army does aggressively recruit recent high school graduates to fight in Iraq who are economically desperate and have few college prospects. That's the only group likely to listen to appeals to join a lost war. Michael Moore captured that so well in his film Fahrenheit 911, when he showed Army recruiters practically chasing young men around a Flint, Michigan, store parking lot. College-bound young men and women from middle and upper class families haven't shown much interest in getting blown up in Baghdad for George W. Bush, notably the President's own daughters. And who can blame them?
Bush's fake outrage was to be expected. He's losing the election and seized on Kerry's remarks like a man trying to fight his way onto the last lifeboat off the Titanic. What did surprise me was that Sen. John McCain joined the chorus. McCain, who knows Kerry well, was likely playing to the Bush base in the South, which he hopes will nominate him for President in 2008.
Newspapers tonight are being very fair to Kerry, reporting his angry retort to Bush, but TV is not. NBC, which I watched, seemed to be playing right along with the White House line that Kerry had "insulted' the troops. And of course, lost in the noise entirely was Bush's own speech in Sugarland, Texas, in which he said the terrorists would win if the Republicans lost. Where was the outrage over that?