ShareThisBy MARSHA MERCER
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
He apologized, and the White House accepted it. Maybe some troops did too.
But many people will not soon forget John Kerry's knock on the troops who serve in Iraq or his nod to class distinctions. The joke wasn't funny, flubbed or not. What Kerry botched were his chances for 2008.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, his likely rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, carefully called Kerry's comments "inappropriate." Others called them stupid, and so did Kerry. Inappropriate, insensitive or stupid _ it's all bad.
To recap, Kerry said: "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."
The decorated Vietnam combat veteran later insisted that's not what he had meant at all. He had botched a joke, he said, and video of the rally did show him looking down at his speech text, perhaps trying to find his place, just before he spoke the offending line.
He apologized, rightly, "to any service member, family member or American who was offended."
What lingers, though, in Kerry's conspiratorial remark is a nagging sense among some that he said what he actually believes _ and that he's not alone.
I wrote last week that times have changed since the Vietnam era when an unpopular war turned people against the soldiers who fought. These days, I said, people blame the policy makers but not the troops. Then Kerry's remarks captured the news.
A reader in Richmond, Va., said I had it wrong. He wrote me this: "The Intellectual, Political and Economic elite are totally disconnected from the military . . . These folks do look down on members of the military as being those with no other options!"
This man has two sons who are graduates of the University of Virginia, people with options, and both are military officers.
"When acquaintances ask about their well being and their mother and I report they are in the Air Force, more often than not there is a look of astonishment with the unasked question, 'Why in the hell would they want to do that?'"
Then, an angry e-mail came from a Democratic friend. Kerry was playing the class card when he allied himself with the students, she fumed, dividing the country between "those stupid schmucks (who) do our dirty work while we educated folks have the wherewithal _ financial and intellectual _ to avoid such distasteful modes of employment."
And, she added, "Americans don't do class? Hah."
That's probably unfair to Kerry, who volunteered for military service. People may look for class-consciousness from him because of his patrician background. In his apology, Kerry tried to put the story back on a political track, saying Republicans "would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy."
But was Kerry discussing policy? What he was supposed to say was: "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. Just ask President Bush."
In his written apology, Kerry said, "My poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to, any troop."
Kerry is not on the ballot this time, and my guess is his flub won't change many voters' minds, although Republicans hope it will energize some on their side.
Kerry's problem apparently is that he's still fighting the last campaign. He believes he should have responded more forcefully to his Swift Boat critics in 2004, so when news of this gaffe broke, he went on the offense. He lashed out at the White House and Republicans and claimed he was being smeared again.
But this isn't 2004, and it's not about John Kerry. It's about how we think of ourselves and our country. And that will matter in 2008.
(Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief of Media General News Service. E-mail mmercer(at)mediageneral.com)
