To believe that John Kerry would knowingly insult our troops is to suggest that he has no concern for his own political viability.
I don’t know John Kerry. He is not a friend of mine. But I would suggest that neither John Kerry nor Trent Lott (about whom more in due course) are as politically obtuse as their detractors claim.
And because I believe that, I don’t accept that John Kerry was denigrating our troops in Iraq when he made his comments about poorly educated people getting stuck in Iraq. He was referring to Bush, and no amount of spin by the right wing a week before the election is going to change that.
The problem with Kerry is that he lacks the JFK ability to make light of difficult circumstances. Instead of coming prepared with a quip and a joke, he overreacted – and consequently did more damage to his party than the original comment.
I can imagine John Kennedy handling the same situation thus: Well, Mr. Bush and his press folks are over there trying to make hay about my joke yesterday. They claim I was denigrating the jobs are troops have. I have news for them: I’m denigrating the job our president has done. They know it, I know it and the American people know it, so I am not concerned. The American people will grade the administration’s performance more relevant than my incapacity to deliver a punch line.
But payback can be heck, as they say, and I am reminded mostly of the Trent Lott episode a few years ago when Lott, trying to manage a few flattering comments about Strom Thurmond, was basically accused by the Left and a few on the Right of supporting the reinstatement of segregation, racism and every other terrible cause cloaked under a confederate flag.
To believe that Lott would knowingly advocate segregation, on national television no less, is to suggest that he had no concern for his own political viability. That simply flies in the face of common sense, but I suppose only a Southern boy like me would understand that Lott, in praising the Thurmond legacy, might have been referring to the late senator's appeals to God, country, family, and states rights of the sort that seeks to limit federal intrusion into our lives.
Never mind. The demagogues had their day then. And they are trying to have their day now, too. One understands, of course, that Lott’s geographic pedigree rendered him suspect, just as Kerry’s cultivated animosity toward America’s military likewise made the spin on his comments believable for many people. But in both cases, poorly chosen words have wrought more drama than they deserved.
Likewise, we labor over whether Michael J. Fox acts or not, or whether the ad criticizing Harold Ford was racist or simply stupid (I think the latter, for what it is worth.)
I have a few questions of my own. Does the administration have a plan to win in Iraq short of saying they have a plan? Do the Democrats have a plan to fight terrorism short of denigrating Bush? Is it any wonder even thoughtful people are tuning out rather than weighing in?
Our nation faces major challenges – a global war that requires shrewd management, immigration issues that require thoughtful solutions, not knee-jerk xenophobia, and a deficit and trade imbalance that threaten to sink our economy.
Herewith a few thoughts on the real issues:
Immigration: a guest worker program is the right way to go. Give illegal workers a year to 18 months to properly register and then get tough across the board. End of issue.
Iraq and the war on terror: Bush should convene a worldwide conference at which he should announce a new plan to infuse the Middle East and the Islamic world with capital in an effort to counter the negative economic and political forces that fuel terrorism. That plan should seek the assistance of the Asians, the Gulf States, NATO and the United States, among others. It should be a long-term commitment, and one that is carefully managed by a tough seasoned leader – Colin Powell comes to mind.
Military might is important but by itself will not defeat those who preach death and hopelessness. And rhetoric alone won’t do it either. If we can spend $300 billion in Iraq, I say we can spend $500 billion with the help of the rest of the world community to pull the rug out from under those whose greatest recruiting tool is the lack of opportunity afforded millions of poor uneducated Arabs and Muslims.
The deficit: Growth is the key to killing the deficits, provided spending is managed. That is why Bush's tax cuts were mostly right (we should curb some corporate loopholes) and the Powell plan (above) will work only with the help of other countries. They are not going to get bogged down in Iraq with us, but they might help fund a global Powell plan. China and Japan could spearhead the effort in their part of the world, the Gulf States in the Middle East, the Europeans and Russia in the Islamic states in their part of the world. Is there any other option short of expending huge resources fighting shadow wars that reap minimal results?
At the very least, these issues – more than campaign commercials or badly delivered jokes – deserve more thought and discussion than they are getting a week out from a critical election.
No, I don’t think John Kerry would do that either. It would be completely uncharacteristic of him to disparage our military men and “the war”. I think we should completely ignore WHAT he said, and focus more on what he MEANT to say. Just like we always have with Republican politicians. That really is the best course of action. And while we’re at it, let’s see if we can’t devote more of our mental energy to finding new ways to expand the government and spend more money, all while finding politically-neutral ways of dealing with our nations problems without actually dealing with anything. For example, the best solution to illegal immigration is to make illegal immigration legal so that it won’t be illegal anymore. To end the war we need to stop fighting our enemies and start subsidizing their citizens so that the war will be over and everyone will be rich, and consequently happy. Ideally, this effort would be spearheaded by the most spineless and pandering international politician these fine United States can muster. To save our record-setting economy, we need to increase income and capital gains taxes and rally the international community behind a no-lose plan to flush as many international dollars as we can lay our hands on down the toilet. The last thing we should be focused on is disparaging remarks made about our troops (oops, I’m sorry, about our President. That’s much classier, after all), or underage congressional page sex scandals. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
There’s a small difference between Kerry and Lott in terms of degree. Lott suggested we would’ve been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the Presidency. He was immediately deluged by comments that since Thurmond was a Dixiecrat and segregation was part of his platform, that segregation was NOW being endorced by Trent Lott. He ended up losing his job over it. John Kerry said that if you don’t do well in school, you get stuck in Iraq. He made a distinction between those who do well and get good jobs, and those who fail and serve in Iraq. Add his track record on insulting the troops, and the fact that he still won’t apologize and it’s clear where he stands.
In short, Trent Lott said something stupid that was intentionally blown out of scale by his detractors, and Kerry mocked our troops and is now trying to claim he was misquoted. It’s nonsense.
Kerry hates our troops, as he always has and as many on the Left do. Look at the protestors of the war who chant “1, 2, 3, 4, we don’t need your racist war!” So, if the war is racist, so are the people fighting it. Murtha, Kerry, and several others have taken opportunities to cheap shot our troops and accuse them as a whole of committing war crimes. It’s ridiculous that anyone would defend his remarks on the grounds of “he was misunderstood”. I’d like the KKK to start that tactic. “Well, Colin, we were misunderstood when we were walking down the streets chanting ‘Death to blacks’. What we really meant was give everyone of them a free puppy!”
And to your wonderful platform. Give illegals a year to admit they broke the law. Once they’ve admitted they done wrong, slap them on the wrist and tell them that we love them dispite their law breaking. And then go on to give them a green card and a porsche. OK, getting right on that.
Stop fighting the war on terror, and instead fight a global war on poverty, even though we can’t even win it in our own country. While we give Iran billions of dollars, perhaps we should hand over nuclear technology like we did to our good friend Kim Jong Il, and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.
And finally, ask the world how we should handlle our economy, and put some ridiculously bloated world Corporation in charge which will decide no one deserves money, but everyone gets a free hotplate and knit sweater.
Well, I can’t see anything wrong with that plan except for, well…..everything. Those aren’t ideas. They’re not even rehashes of old BAD ideas. They’re just babbling.
Hey, if we’re implimenting your plan, maybe I should just wear a shirt that says “No gun neccessary, I hand over my wallet willingly.” And then there will be no more crime either!
Such sarcasm in the replies to this! I will try my best to avoid any, but I’m not making any promises.
I’m not sure whether it was a botched joke or not. I’m inclined to think it was more along the lines of misstated joke and a Freudian slip. He didn’t mean to say that, but that is what he believes. As has been pointed out, this wouldn’t be his first attempt to tarnish the reputation of our troops. However, as politically inept as he is, he can’t be moronic enough to say what he did on purpose.
Putting that aside, he DID malign the troops and he owed them an apology. Call in Miss Cleo if you want to figure out what he meant. It’s what he actually said that warrants the apology. Moreover, the apology he did give was a non-apology. If you’re married or have a girlfriend, try this: After you’ve said something stupid or inadvertantly insulting to her (we all do it on ocassion), just say “Honey, I’m sorry you misinterpreted what I said.” See how far that gets you. Just make sure you have a pillow and blanket on the couch ready to go until you’re ready to make a REAL apology instead of blaming her for misunderstanding you.
As for the rest of the article, I’ll just stick with illegal immigration since it’s a pet peeve of mine.
“Give illegal workers a year to 18 months to properly register…” — This is a part of a possible solution. It is a definitive idea. Not one that I agree with, but it’s an attempt.
“…and then get tough across the board. End of issue.” —-This is vague. It mean essentially ‘do nothing’. End of issue? No, it’s more like telling every illegal wannabe in Mexico “Hey, you’ve only got 18 more months to get here. Hurry up!” (For the record that was NOT sarcasm.) Wouldn’t common sense tell us to secure the borders FIRST, then deal with our illegals? If your basement is flooding, do you start bailing water out before you stop the leak? You do if you’re a democrat or a Wallstreet Journal editor, I guess. (Okay that was just a tad sarcastic).
I agree with Mr. Shadroui that Kerry did not knowingly or intentionally mean to insult our troops. It just comes naturally to an effete pseudo-intellectual eastern snob.
It only proves that the arrogance of the Left was on display with Kerry certain that the MSM would come to his rescue. It was only the Blogs and other internet news that shot him down. If there was no Blogs or internet he could have gotten of scott free.
wolvenbear, let me clarify one misunderstanding in your comments and let me concede the problem is mine as I was sloppy in my handling of the issue. I am not suggesting that we hand our economy to an international organization. I was suggesting that we could not fund the Powell plan (for lack of a better term) ourselves, so it would require leveraging the wealth of other nations. In short, we could not pony up the full cost of such a plan without taxing our people, which I and others oppose as a matter of principle. I don’t claim to know all the answers, but I do know that the current approach shows no signs of improving the situation in Iraq or the Middle East. As for Ron S.’s immigration glass, when I say issue over, I mean simply that the debate about policy should end. We should at that point enforce diligently the law and return illegals to their own country.
Mr. Shadroui, I don’t quite understand “immigration glass”.
If you don’t build a fence or something like it, returning illegals to their own country would just result in them sneaking right back into our country. Will a fence keep everyone out? Of course not. However, it would do a helluva lot.
“enforce dilligently the law” would vary depending on who was in elected office (state, local and federal). Some of them don’t care to stop illegals. A fence, however would not vary. No matter who gets elected, the fence stands. Is it a panacea? Again, no. But it’s better than the vague “enforce dilligently the law”.
By many accounts, the fence in Israel is doing a very good job. Is it perfect? No, but the amount of suicide bombers coming in from other areas has been cut down quite a bit, which is why we hear so much about rocket attacks into Israel instead of suicide bombers.
About the “Iraq and the war on terror:” part. You’ve gotta be kidding.
Let’s see…in the arab world it seems that the key to power is to keep the people poor and keep the money for the ruling class. When the people get angry about their poverty and lack of prospects it is important to blame the west (Israel and the U.S. specifically) for their plight. The fact that the folks inciting people to kill westerners are quite well-to-do seems to get lost in the discussion.
So, the solution is to throw more money at the arab governments? I know, I know, not the government, but the people. The problem is that the flow of money ALWAYS goes through the government. How many times have we tried this strategy in African countries only to see the wealth of the government officials go up and their people stay poor? Will we never learn? Evidently not. There’s always some new plan that will work (but never does).
We cannot bribe these people into peace. They have been indoctrinated into hating us since they were children and they pass that on to their children. As long as their political and religious leaders preach to them a hatred (and blame) of the west, no amount of money thrown at them is going to help.
The issue was never really money anyway. It’s power. As a government you can acquire power by raising up your country and you with it or you can raise yourself up at the expense of the people and blame someone else for what’s wrong in their lives. That second option is easier and works well if you can fan the flames of hatred into the right direction.
In short, we can throw all the money we want at them. The only result is that we get a little poorer.
A little footnote on getting the other countries of the world to help us. Yes, they’ll “help” as long as we foot most of the bill. France and Germany would see this as yet another attempt by the U.S. to lead the world and will be against it. China… Well,when did China become our buddy? China acts only when it helps China’s interests. I’m not hearing too many stories of terrorism in China. Until we do hear those stories I wouldn’t bet too much on China cooperating either.
What country has the money (and the desire) to help us with this wonderful plan? Can’t think of any.
gloss. not glass. A gloss is a take or recounting of a given issue. This is the danger of web writing. It was a typo. My apologies.
You may well be right on the larger issues. I don’t underestimate the cynicism of the rest of the world, trust me. I was trying to make a political point — that Bush should be on the offensive. If the rest of the world says no, Bush can then go to the UN and say: Look, I offered a plan to deal with this world-wide problem. Those in this room failed to act. I offered a way to deal with these issues beyond military force. No one responded. My point, Ron, is that Bush does not do a good job as a politician in finding the high ground and keeping his assailants on the defensive. I think it cost him and his party on Tuesday. I also think there might be some support for such an idea — after all, The Gulf states ponied up for the first Gulf War. A radical Iran dictating regional issues is the last thing they want. But mainly I am saying — offer creative ideas. Don’t pound your head against a brick wall. Speaking of walls, no, I do not support the fence. Not yet anyway. Why go to the most extreme solution before trying other solutions that are less controversial, less problematic and less likely to alienate. If the guest worker idea fails, by all means other options should be considered. If you are conservative, you believe in economic incentives. A guest worker program would remove the incentive for the vast majority of people to enter the country illegally (and dangerously) while giving our government a tracking and taxing tool. Give it some thought.
Mr. Shadroui, with all due respect, I don’t believe you are thinking this through. The guest worker program sounds great, but if you think it all the way through you’ll find some major problems.
- As soon as you announce this program, it’ll be waving a red flag. “Last chance to get into the country. Better hurry!”
- You’re talking about the government tracking 12 – 20 million people. Our government does not do this well. I give as an example the INS. How many people are in this country right now where the government has no idea where they are? Think expired visas. Likely, this would be the same agency that administers the guest worker program.
- The real leap of faith however is that those who do not qualify for the guest worker program will just turn around and go home. The incorrect assumption you make is that there would be no incentive to come here illegally if we institute a guest worker program. I don’t know where that assumption is founded.
Let me try a logical progression here. The guest worker program is instituted. Now that they are legally working here, they can ask for (and get) higher wages than they currently do as illegals. The first open arms that the guest worker will find are unions–count on it. Up go the wages. Now employers are paying more than they did before. The employers who hired them as illegals don’t want to pay more. This is the major incentive for hiring illegals in the first place.
What is the solution for these employers? Well, as luck would have it, despite the guest worker program, there are still many many people who could not qualify for the program but who still want to live here (these would be more illegals). The employers will hire them. This, of course would perpetuate the problem we currently have. The only upside to this is that the unions won’t take kindly to illegals possibly taking work from their new union dues paying members.
Maybe you say that the government will crack down and keep employers honest? Well, the government wanted to ignore the whole thing until the demonstrations started (or around that time). Frankly, the government doesn’t WANT to enforce the current immigration laws so what in the world could lead you to think that they would enforce new laws? Even if they wanted to, how could they (see the INS reference above)?
As you can see, I have given this some thought. I only ask that you return the favor.
As for the Bush comments, I agree with you. I would only add that his biggest failure up to this point is that he failed to show us that we were winning in Iraq. He has TOLD us that we are, but he has failed to show us where and how. Or, maybe he has just failed to convince us, I’m not sure. He has not countered the body-bags reports with real progress reports. We are left to assume that we are not winning, or at best are just treading water there.