Senator Kerry's Punch Line

The other day at a campaign event in Los Angeles Sen. John Kerry said that George Bush had lived in Texas “but now he lives in a state of denial. 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. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq”.

The President’s mouth piece, Tony Snowjob said Kerry should apologize to US troops and their families for insinuating that those who serve in the military are not smart and claiming this is an absolute insult. How would Tony Snow know what it feels like to be in a military uniform 24/7 for 2 years or more?

Indeed Tony’s perception of Sen. Kerry’s statement is influenced by a lack of first hand experience much like that of those who surround him at the Bush White House including Dr. Henry Kissinger who said “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy..” Now that IS insulting but a “C” student who served in Vietnam could hardly be expected to remember this lethal quote to silence another “C” student of privilege who did not who did not serve in the military.

A simple analysis of the statement syntax considers the juxtaposition of the sentences thus following a thought process of another “C” student who neglected to say “you get “us” stuck in Iraq” and compels anyone of moderate intelligence to conclude that Sen. Kerry was in no way “insulting” the troops. Anyone who inferred otherwise would be one who is utterly incapable of having an independent thought which didn’t die from loneliness.

The reality is that there was a truth which to date the press has ignored indeed so have the “C” student participants in this distraction of “he” said, “he said” minutiae. The “truth” was that about five months ago the U.S. Army lowered its standards of enlistment, increased enlistment bonuses to $20,000.

I strongly suspect that if a curious sociologist were to study the educational and economic demographics of the 150,000 people serving in Iraq today they wouldn’t find many well educated and economically well off types at the front on the war on terrorism but they would find an abundance of enlisted and guardsmen, most good people, yet who were purely motivated by economic gain, educational opportunity, and/or no other options available in the civilian world to survive in a consumerist society.

Once upon a time I was a “troop” for 17 years and I was not personally insulted by Sen. Kerry’s remarks because I know he intended to insult the commander-in-chief for waging a failing fabricated war but I was insulted by his remark that he blew the punch line to a joke. Iraq today is no joke for our men and women neither in uniform nor for millions of Iraqi’s whose entire way of life has been destroyed for decades if not forever.

Yet as soon as rabid Republican spin masters demanded an apology the shameless renunciations flowed from the spineless members and wanna be members of the appeasement party. To name a few: Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee said Kerry was wrong and should apologize. McCaskill from Missouri said “it was a real dumb thing to say” – this from the “show me” – well, show me Ms. McCaskill what is it that was dumb? Oh and she also called on Kerry to apologize.

To his credit Sen. Kerry’s apology was better late than never. A strong character accepts responsibility for his actions, is willing to be held accountable, and doesn’t cut and run from the consequences of his actions.

The cheerleader has yet to apologize for the death and destruction in Iraq all a result of his role as commander-in-chief of a war based on faulty and perhaps cooked intelligence accepted and knowingly perpetuated by him in his role as president.

And while our representatives are demanding apologies from each other how about one from all those who continue to refer to our military as a "volunteer" army with an in your face implication "they wouldn't be in the military if they didn't want to be" as if most of our men and women are too stupid to know that they are waging a war based on another intelligence failure by this Administration and too stupid to refuse to obey an unlawful order of a commander-in-chief. Now that is an insult to our men and women in uniform.

John Kerry didn’t blow the punch line but he did blow a rare chance to call the bluff of these stuffed suits, the policy wonk patriots who put others in harms way but make no sacrifice themselves because they never needed military service to pay for a higher education that would result in being qualified for job opportunities other than military service.

Sen. Kerry had the golden opportunity to demand equality of rights as well as responsibilities and thereby unite the country by calling for universal conscription without regard to gender and without deferment or preferential treatment based privilege. If freedom and justice is for all shouldn't we all experience what it is like when put in a position of having to make the supreme sacrfice?

When everyone has something to lose perhaps then and only then will those in the position to wage war be less reckless with the lives of others and less inclined to consider the “troops” as pawns to be sacrificed for a foreign policy that profits the few at the expense of the many.