OT Kerry the traitor...Karl Rover's friend?

Editorial on John Kerry controversy
Philadelphia Inquirer
Article Last Updated:11/02/2006 04:00:37 PM MST


The following editorial appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on
Thursday, Nov. 2:
Swift move, senator
So now John F. Kerry is trying to lose this election for the
Democrats, too.
It's bad enough when your party's standard-bearer mangles the
message so badly that he loses a winnable election, as Kerry did in
2004. But it's unbelievable when a guy whom Democrats should have
locked in a storage room until Nov. 8 gives Republicans just the kind
of blunder they can exploit to avoid a historic whipping.
Here's the idiocy Kerry committed. Speaking at a college Monday in
California, he was supposed to say: "I can't overstress the importance
of a great education. 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."
In other words, he was supposed to launch a zinger at President
Bush - a smug, predictable, unfunny zinger, but at least well-aimed.
Instead, showing the oratorical ineptitude that doomed his '04
presidential bid, Kerry said: "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."
Huh? It's pretty hard to parse that gobbledy**** as anything other
than a slam on the intelligence and diligence

of America's military personnel.
A totally undeserved slam.
Republican campaign operatives and partisan bloggers were hardly
able to disguise their yelps of glee as they fulminated about this
insult to "our brave fighting men and women."
Kerry's blunder was a particular gift to Republicans who fear
losing control of Capitol Hill because of their role in fomenting the
Iraq fiasco.
This gaffe revives conservatives' favorite deep narrative. You
know, the one where liberals are cowardly snobs secretly contemptuous
of the brave warriors who risk their lives to preserve the elite's
right to sip lattes, drive Volvos and send Joshua to prep school.
Conservatives have spent years honing that riff into the glinting
tip of their political spear. And Kerry, he of the Brahmin background
and thrown-away medals, is a key villain in their myth.
So, it hardly matters that Kerry didn't mean to say what he ended
up saying (even he is not that stupid).
It just fits too perfectly into the whole
Democrats-as-snobbish-wimps thing.
What's more, antiwar liberals still do and say dumb things to keep
the narrative alive.
You've heard of bad generals who insist on fighting the last war.
Well, the antiwar left often seem intent on protesting the last war. A
staple of Vietnam protest was the charge, not unfounded, that it was a
war where the upper classes used college to avoid the draft, while the
poor and minorities were sent to the rice paddies to die.
Today's military is not that military. Iraq is not that war.
You've seen the photo galleries of the fallen; they are a true rainbow
coalition.
The volunteer military, until it became clear how badly Bush's
Iraq policy was betraying the troops, had little trouble attracting
qualified recruits motivated by the combined lure of patriotism,
meaningful work, and college aid.
A 2005 Heritage Foundation analysis found that, while a small
majority of 2003 recruits were from the lower income quintiles, plenty
came from higher income brackets. Whether white, black, Latino or
Asian, these volunteers are mostly smart, gutsy, able people who
strive for excellence and leadership.
The Army, which has borne the brunt in Iraq along with the
Marines, is about 25 percent black (compared to about 13 percent of
the population as a whole). But that's in part because more blacks
decide to make the military their career; recruitment percentages more
closely mirror the general populace.
It also seems that rural whites, not urban blacks, are
overrepresented in combat roles.
Anyone who still claims that U.S. military recruiters prey on the
dumb and underprivileged has a very weak case, one that insults
hundreds of thousands who put it on the line every day for the rest of
us.
Few Democrats still believe such crap. But those who do jeopardize
their party's chance of earning voters' trust.

--

Scott in Florida