Friday, November 3, 2006
Commentary: Kerry's flubbed line more like a Freudian slip
I'm a big believer in the Freudian slip. I think that the tongue rarely goes off on its own course and says something that is not rooted in actual reason, or actual thought. Watching a football game and talking to your wife might cause a man to accidentally drop a literally offensive term into a conversation about your cousin's wedding gift. In short, it can be dangerous.
John Kerry, failed presidential candidate, is now learning the depth of the danger presented when one's tongue slips. At an event in California, the Massachusetts' Senator told an audience that education was critically important, because people without it would get stuck in Iraq. Effectively Kerry told the world that America's Armed Forces are comprised of morons who couldn't manage to do something else. The only folks, who go to Iraq, if you take Kerry literally, are just too simple to have made something of their lives and avoid it.
For his part, Kerry has been crushed under an outpouring of anger from Democrats and Republicans alike. His explanation for the outrageous remark is that he slipped. He meant to imply that education kept you from winding up like George W. Bush; which in many people's minds is not a desirable outcome.
Of course what John Kerry meant to say is not, in fact, what he said. The insinuation that our soldiers are the intellectual cast-offs of our society is at once the most pessimistic and ugly thing that any anti-war crusader could ever think. It would be easy to pass the remark off as an unfortunate slip from most people, but John Kerry is not most people. He earned his political capital as a Vietnam vet who came home as a staunch antiwar crusader.
During the 2004 Presidential election Kerry was defeated by a vulnerable and unpopular incumbent, in part because some of the people he served with during Vietnam questioned his leadership and his honesty when it came to the facts of his service. Many Vietnam Veterans are still angry with Kerry for his participation in hardline anti-war activities following his return from service.
In testimony before Congress Kerry described alleged 'war crimes' perpetrated by United States soldiers in Vietnam. He supported a plan for peace in the '70s that was constructed in communist East Germany. He was, in fact, an opponent of not just the war in Vietnam, but the overall American position against the spread of communism. He was close, though it is disputed exactly to what extent, with Jane Fonda. Fonda, in one of the most traitorous acts since Benedict Arnold gave comfort to the Viet Cong while we were at war with them.
Kerry reportedly tossed someone else's medals onto the Capital in an apparent bold and self-sacrificing anti-war protest. At the time he claimed they were his own, but reports indicated later that he made the gesture with awards that were not his own. His own, I understand, are back in his Senate office. No doubt they take a position of prominence when Kerry finds it politically palatable to be a war hero. Perhaps when Kerry claimed that the thrown medals were his own, he misspoke?
In the end, John Kerry's gaffe may be a godsend for the Democratic Party. It seems a foregone conclusion that this incident will keep him from another successful run at a Presidential nomination in two years. I suspect that if a strong Republican (perhaps Mitt Romney) could be convinced to run in the Bay State, John's once comfortable Senate seat could be in jeopardy.
Kerry's words expose what I believe is his own personal bias. He is on the extreme fringe of '70s holdover pacifist liberals. The comments of John Kerry are the secret holdings of a small fraction of blue-blooded snobs who regard people serving in the military with disdain and contempt. From the comfort of their yachts, ski chalets, and wind surfing excursions they tisk with self-serving furrowed brows at the waste of humanity that military service represents.
The Associated Press, on Thursday, released documentation from Kerry's 1972 Congressional campaign. In that campaign the anti-war crusader railed against America's volunteer military. "I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown." In effect, what Kerry said this week is not much different; educate yourself and you can avoid the whole mess altogether.
Discourse over the war in Iraq, and arguments about the best strategy to complete our mission there should be ongoing. They are necessary because we, as a nation, will be responsible for the outcome of our actions there. Reasonable victory at a reasonable price should be everyone's goal, even if we have different ideas for how to achieve those things.
No one can take away the fact that John Kerry served in Vietnam. By the same token no one is obligated to forget his more frequent abhorrent behavior, or the political gains it got him. Only now has he finally been exposed, through accidental speech or not, as someone who sees the military through a very ugly prism. An attitude like his is an attitude that can never be carried by a commander-in-chief. Thanks to a campaign stop in California, I don't think it ever will.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Barry Gadbois has been employed behind the scenes with several news organizations, and is a former employee of the National Training Center, Fort Irwin. He is presently employed by a Boston-based news network, and resides part time in Barstow. He can be contacted at
talkback@gadbois.us
