My take on Kerry's latest
Then I started thinking about it, and watched it (over and over, courtesy of all my cable news channels). Here's my take.
Those comments are offensive. Really offensive. Yet, I really don't think he meant to demean the troops. He's stupid, but he's not that stupid, nor are his advisors. Come on - in the final days of an election that's this close to actually PLAN to come out and offend a huge chunk of America and potentially swing the middle? No way, no how. I actually DO buy his "flubbed joke" excuse. Even executed better, I'm not sure that I understand his joke nor do I think it would have been very funny if he'd have actually made the Bush tie-in, but I just can't believe that this was a planned "dis" of the troops.
Be that as it may, the fact still remains that:
- Kerry has done stuff like this before (most notably his 1971 comments), which makes this all that more believable.
- He IS a patrician and about as much of an elitist as there is
- Most impotantly, I believe he actually DOES look down upon our military and those who serve in it. I don't think he even realizes that he does, because it's just so ingrained in his psyche. In his mind, they are the little people who didn't have the smarts, connections or cash to go to an Ivy League college, marry money (twice!) and become a liberal Senator from Massachusetts and a failed Presidential candidate.
It is for that latter reason that I think he flubbed the joke. People tend to make extemporaneous verbal mistakes in favor of positions they already hold. True feelings usually come out. And his really lame attempt to fight through this one is exactly the opposite of what he needed to do.
Imagine if he'd come out immediately and said "I am so sorry. I was trying to make a joke about the President's intelligence, but I flubbed it, and after watching my poor attempt at comedy, it's clear to me that my comments can easily (and probably should) be taken as offensive to our men and women in the military. I meant no such insult, and I am deeply sorry". Poof! Problem solved in a day or so, and he looks so much better. At this point, the "I apologize to no one" line makes it virtually impossible for him to apologize, or if he does, for it to be taken seriously by anyone.
John Kerry. Patrician. Brahmin. Elistist. And fortunately for Republicans, a man with perhaps the worst political instincts of all time.
posted by festivus | 11/01/2006 08:47:00 AM
I don't buy the joke part. How can what Kerry said be reconstructed into a joke?
It was clear that he flubbed - stating something he truly believes.
I think the intended joke was "if you don't study hard and try to be smart LIKE PRESIDENT BUSH, the results are that you get stuck in Iraq LIKE THIS ADMINSTRATION IS NOW". Admitttedly not a good joke, but I think that's what he intended.
The freudian slip, however, illustrates his underlying disdain for the military and those who serve.
Of course Kerry would not plan to ‘dis’ the troops (by the way ‘dis’ is an abomination of the English language, but I digress), but his attempt at levity reveals much about his character. I do not for one minute buy his lame explanation that it was intended to be a joke aimed at President Bush. The operative word he used was ‘you’… either you do well in school or you end up in Iraq. Clearly, in his view, those serving in the military could not make it in academia. Here we see Kerry again attempting to appeal to whatever audience he happens to be in front of at that time. Let’s face it, if he had really meant to point fun at President Bush and his academic record, he would have had much better choices for his punch line:
Either you do well in school or…
… you become the 43rd President
… you say things like nuke-ler and strateegery
… you end up living in Crawford, Texas (this might have upset a few people in Crawford, but who cares about those bible-thumping rednecks anyways)
I can only imagine the outrage that would have spewed out from the left had a republican said this.
I think it really was a flub. All he did was drop the word "us". That is, if you study, ..., you can do well, but if you goof off, you'll get us stuck in Iraq."
But this still tells a lot about Kerry. Any non-idiot would say "I meant to say (what I said above) but by accident dropped the word "us". I of course understand why everyone is upset. As I actually spoke the words, as opposed to how I actually meant to speak the words, they are indeed offensive. And for this carelessness in speech on my part, I apologize for the justified offense I caused."
Of course, he did no such thing, but went ballistic about how anyone who doesn't immediately conclude that this was a slip of the tongue is awful person and so forth. Well since a whole lot of military people did take offense, he has now, with intent, insulted them.
As Jonah Goldberg says, "What a tool".
Watching the tape, it seems obvious to me that, joke or not, this was an elitist speaking to a group of potential elitists, sharing his disdain of the "lower classes" that he, by virtue of his intellectual and moral superiority, was destined to rule over. He was urging them to "be smart" and avoid becoming like "them"- the brave men and women of the military and those who support them. He is beneath contempt.
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