Kerrying Disfavor With Our Troops & The Electorate

 by Aaron Goldstein  

| View comments |  Print This Post

While it remains to be seen whether Kerry’s gaffe will shift electoral momentum towards the GOP, it clearly made Democrats nervous.

In my last column, I excoriated Rush Limbaugh for mocking Michael J. Fox’s symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease and argued that it could cost the Republican Party dearly at the polls on November 7th.

However, I also wrote this pearl of clairvoyance:

We are entering the final stretch of the midterm elections.   As the old adage goes, a week in politics is a lifetime . . . We are one step removed from a prominent Democrat likening our troops to al Qaeda terrorists.  Such an ill-advised utterance could change everything and save the GOP majority in one if not both Houses of Congress.  So much could happen between now and November 7th.

Indeed, I wrote the passage thinking of Kerry’s statement to Bob Schieffer on Face The Nation that our troops were terrorizing women and children in Iraq, though I did not mention Kerry by name.

O.K., John Kerry did not liken our troops to al Qaeda terrorists.  However, he did the next worse thing when he questioned their intelligence.  While appearing on behalf of California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at Pasadena City College on October 30th, Kerry offered, “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.  And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

These comments hit a raw nerve with soldiers and civilians alike.  They also hit a raw nerve with our Commander-in-Chief.

President Bush rightly condemned Kerry’s comments the following day while speaking at a rally in Georgia.  He described the comments of his opponent during the 2004 Presidential election as “insulting and shameful” and said that he owed the troops an apology.  Later that day, Kerry, who by this time was in Seattle, was defiant.  Not only would Kerry not apologize, he said that Bush and Cheney should be the ones doing the apologizing.  The junior Senator from Massachusetts claimed they had “misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.”  On top of that, Kerry insisted that his remark was “a botched joke.”   

Yes, I am sure we will see Kerry work on his stand-up routine at a comedy club near you.

While it remains to be seen whether Kerry’s gaffe will shift electoral momentum towards the GOP, it clearly made Democrats nervous.  While some Democratic candidates such as Pennsylvania Senatorial candidate Bob Casey stood by Kerry, many others distanced themselves from his comments.  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez both described Kerry’s remarks as “inappropriate.”  Jon Tester, the Senatorial candidate from Montana, bluntly called Kerry’s attempt at comedy “poorly worded and just plain stupid.”  Representative Harold Ford, Jr., who is in a tight Senate race in Tennessee, echoed President Bush’s sentiments stating, “He needs to apologize to our troops.”

With pressure being brought to bear on November 1st, Kerry came out with an apology.  Sort of:

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

Loosely translated: You just don’t get it. You don’t appreciate nuance or subtlety. Besides, can’t you guys take a joke?  

But he did apologize, however belatedly and tentatively.  It’s about as good as we’re going to get out of Kerry.

Yet this is certainly not the first time Kerry has sullied our troops.  Indeed, his disdain for our troops represents the building block of his political career.  When testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, he made unsubstantiated accusations that his fellow troops committed war crimes that were done with the knowledge of the highest level of command.  Fast forward 34½ years later, he accuses our troops of terrorizing women and children in Iraq.  Different war, same shtick.  It is why Kerry’s name is still mud in many a VFW hall to this very day.  Again, it is not the first time Kerry has sullied our soldiers.  Sadly, it probably won’t be the last.

Here’s a sadder thought. There is a critical mass within the Democratic Party and among broader left-wing circles that views American power with inherent suspicion.  This suspicion encompasses the Commander-in-Chief on down to 18-year-old army privates and navy seamen.  Don’t think for a moment that Kerry is alone in having those sentiments.   

Should we elect to hand control of one or both Houses of Congress over to the Democratic Party there is a good chance these sentiments will find their way into legislation that would ultimately result in sapping the morale of our troops, be it through reduced appropriations or reduced esteem upon the military as an institution that preserves our democracy.

John Kerry might be able to put this episode behind him, especially if Democrats are wise enough to keep him away from their events and out of the public eye for the rest of the year.  The Democrats might be able to win one or both Houses of Congress despite Kerry.  But mark my words, so long as there is a critical mass of the population opposed to our efforts in Iraq (and for that matter Afghanistan) this will not be the last time anti-military sentiment will rear its ugly head.

Elections & Political Parties

Read more articles by Aaron Goldstein