Much has been made over the last couple of days about Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., trying to be funny— and as usual missing the mark — with a comment about President George W. Bush and the administration's policies in Iraq.
Pols, pundits and "patriots" are calling for an apology from Mr. Kerry for his insensitivity to our troops by suggesting that the lack of an education lands one in Iraq. Mr. Kerry has insisted that he misspoke and what he meant to say was that "if you're intellectually lazy, you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq — just ask President Bush." He mangled the line and it seemed to suggest that enlisted military aren't that bright.
The White House press secretary Tony Snow was incredulous and was outraged at Mr. Kerry. Mr. Snow did not have the same outrage last year when President Bush showed some slides of himself searching the Oval Office for WMD. Mr. Snow has never criticized Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for repeatedly making flippant remarks to and about soldiers and generals.
But I too join in the calls for an apology from Mr. Kerry. I too think that he owes the American people and the troops an apology.
He should apologize to the American people for putting himself in the public eye after being defeated in the 2004 presidential elections. He should go back to Massachusetts and quietly continue to serve in the senate. How many other senators have lost presidential bids and still tried to be the face of their party? Sen. John McCain, R-AZ., — poised to take over the top spot in 2008 — notwithstanding, most senators have quietly gone away. Kennedy, Dole, Hart, and others have had the good sense to stay out of the national spotlight.
Like a moth, Mr. Kerry is compelled to put himself in front of the cameras. Didn't he embarrass the Democrats enough by losing to Mr. Bush? The decorated veteran was made to look like a draft dodger by an AWOL reservist. With all of the evidence that Mr. Bush vacationed us into 9/11, lied us into Iraq, drove us into a record national debt and sat back watching as businesses defrauded the government and the people, Mr. Kerry still lost.
He should have had the good sense to take what was left of his pride — as former Vice President Al Gore did — and ducked the national spotlight. But Mr. Kerry's fatal flaw is that he has no sense of shame, no sense of honor.
Mr. Kerry owes the people — Democrats in particular — an apology for allowing the right to goad him into the spotlight. When the Republican propagandists need a quick hit Mr. Kerry lobs them a soft one every time.
But more than the Democrats, Mr. Kerry — and his party cohorts — owes the American people a heartfelt apology for allowing this administration carte blanche in Iraq and the "War on Terror." Mr. Kerry voted to give the President the power to invade Iraq. Mr. Kerry approved the post-9/11 measures that led us into becoming a country were the Constitution is now seconded to the will of the President, where international law and multi-lateralism is scoffed and mocked.
Moreover Mr. Kerry and the entire senate owe an apology to the troops who are being demoralized and decimated by endless deployments to Iraq. Someone in the senate should have pushed the administration to enact the selective service system. Besides providing much needed replacements to the fighting forces, such a move would have forced the American people to really consider our policies in Iraq, to share the burden so to speak. When teens from the suburbs are forced into the military, suburbanites don't take it lightly. But as long as it is a military made up of folks from small towns and the inner cities, the war is something distant something that other people are doing. It becomes just one other tidbit on the news.
If Sen. Kerry had pushed for a draft in 2003 when the war started, Americans would have looked at the President's rhetoric a whole lot differently in 2004. College students would have been forced from their apathy. Doubtlessly some would have joined the military, others would have fled the country, and still others would have taken to the streets in protest demanding that Congress hold the President responsible.
Mr. Kerry understands from experience the power of young people protesting presidential policies. Mr. Kerry made his political career on it.
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