He's the de facto head of the Democratic Party, its past and perhaps future presidential nominee, the man who almost became president. When he talks, people still listen. He speaks for his party. And, with a week to go in this year's congressional elections, John Kerry talked Monday evening.
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well," the Massachusetts senator told a California political rally Monday. "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Many people think Kerry was insulting U.S. troops fighting and too often dying in Iraq by saying they're a bunch of uneducated dimwits. Kerry's defense: I was actually insulting President Bush by suggesting he's an uneducated dimwit.
Yes, it was just a botched Bush-is-a-moron joke, and that's it. After all, he reminded us, he's a veteran, and he won't be lectured by those who've "never worn the uniform of our country."
OK, fine, Sen. John McCain will do the lecturing. He's not only a veteran but also a former prisoner of war. "Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education," the Arizona senator said. "They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. ... The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk."
My guess is that it probably was a joke gone bad. Kerry was an awful presidential candidate, but it's hard to believe even he would consciously insult our troops. Not in this day and age. In the end, however, Kerry's "it-was-a-joke!" defense doesn't matter all that much for many reasons.
The idea that he was really insulting the president instead of the troops is a pathetic excuse. The-president's-stupid humor should be beneath the dignity of any senator. The fact that it's not suggests why Kerry is not president today. No class. But Kerry in particular should stay away from the juvenile comedy routines. Bush's grades were better than Kerry's when they were at Yale. And, why, if Bush is such a dolt, is Kerry the one who always has so much 'splainin' to do—'splainin' how he lost an election to the man called "this idiot," 'splainin' how he really wasn't dissing our soldiers Monday night.
Even if this gaffe was simply a bad joke, there's still poetic justice in the Kerry hubbub. He's made a career of slandering U.S. soldiers. His 1971 Senate testimony alleged widespread atrocities by our soldiers ("they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ..."). On "Face the Nation" last year, Kerry said our soldiers were "going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women. ..."
It's also telling that his bollixed-up comedy bit echoes the anti-military stereotype embraced in certain chi-chi quarters. Kerry flubs a joke in a way that furthers the Vietnam-era chestnut that says our military is made up of poor, uneducated and disproportionately minority kids—what a coincidence.
The sad fact is that many people think there's truth in Kerry's unintended or intended insult of our troops. The truth is the opposite, according to a recent Heritage Foundation study.
"U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier and more rural on average than their civilian peers," Tim Kane found after reviewing the characteristics of recruits from 2003-2005. "The enlisted ranks are not disproportionately composed of minorities. Whites serve in numbers roughly proportional to their representation in the population."
Finally, Wednesday afternoon, with Democratic candidates demanding apologies and canceling Kerry appearances, their 2004 standard bearer apologized for his "misinterpreted" remarks.
Soldiers and their families might well ask: Was Kerry's botched joke a verbal or a Freudian slip?
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David Reinhard is the associate editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon.
