The current flap about John Kerry’s remarks to students in California proves that you can never overestimate the venal desperation of Bushites nor underestimate the hyper-cautious spinelessness of democrats.
After several one liners, including a joke that President Bush has lived in Texas but now lives "in the state of denial"—Kerry said "Education, you know, 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. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."
In the written version of his speech the text read: "Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush." For the sake of debate let’s ignore the prepared text and deal with what he actually said.
The Bushites claim his remark was an insult to the troops risking their lives in Iraq. The feckless democrats flopped onto their back and proclaimed his remark inappropriate. Television’s faux-journalist talking heads did their usual shallow job of dealing with the issue. (I won’t dignify dimwits like Rush Limbaugh by quoting them)
Taking Kerry’s actual remarks literally, did he imply troops in Iraq were stupid? No. What his literal remark implies is what anyone knows to be true unless one has been living under a rock. That is, generally, those with less economic fortune and those with less formal education, have been fighting our wars for us. And we–-most certainly those wealthy republicans—-would not have it any other way.
Most of the young men and women who were drafted and died in Vietnam did not have college degrees. Nor were they young men and women of lush financial means. The same is true of the war in Korea. The same is true of the troops in Iraq today.
Yes, there is no draft today. Yes, we do have a professional military today—and yes, its core is made up of officers with degrees. However, the vast majority of those bearing the brunt of this war-—as with past wars—-are young, less educated (not stupid) and of modest means. My guess is that a survey of our national guard (some serving their second and third tour in Iraq) reflect similar demographics.
John Kerry should apologize, all right---–for speaking at George Bush’s level of articulation. Then he should take a leave of absence from the political scene and enroll in a refresher course in political astuteness.
George Bush should apologize to the planet for his unjustified war in Iraq and the chaos that has resulted from it!
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