Kerry's Tasteless Joke, Or Why the Ds Can't Get a Majority

Many things will be said today, as they were yesterday, on John Kerry's so-called joke about people who don't study ending up stuck in Iraq. We'll discuss it in terms not about Kerry's actual intentions, nor about the merits of Kerry, Bush or the Iraq war. We will discuss instead the nature of Democrat rhetoric. We think Democrat rhetoric generally fails these days, we recent elections as proof, we mildly prognosticate that November 7 will prove that the Democrats will not have fully exploited their moment of opportunity this autumn, and we think that Kerry's dumb joke and his ongoing response illustrates why. In sum, this affair embodies all the dumb assumptions that Democrats embed in their rhetoric, leading to dumb jokes like this one that further erode their position in the body politic.

We detail as follows:

Dumb assumption number one: Republicans differ from Democrats because Republicans are stupid and Democrats are smart. This has been the refrain ever since Gerald Ford was President. It got harsh in the Reagan years, and it's been harsher still in the Dubya years. The vain attempt is to ascribe policy differences to intellectual differences. It's vain because lots of smart people are Republicans. It's vainer still because during the 2004 election campaign, we got a glimpse of Mr. Kerry's and Mr. Bush's records at their shared alma mater and discovered that Bush had the slightly higher GPA, though neither legacy admission was a distinguished scholar.

Applying the "dumb Republican" trope to the Iraq war is especially ineffective for Kerry & Co. when the Democrats have studiously avoided putting forward anything resembling an Iraq policy (as if a clear policy is even possible in a situation like this). If the Rs are dumb on Iraq, then the Ds appear to be dumber.

Dumb assumption number two: Republicans differ from Democrats because Republicans are immoral and Democrats are moral. Broadly speaking, the Ds, the party that brought you a mushroom cloud in a TV ad in 1964, generally wail the loudest about unfair attack ads (and Evil Genius Karl Rove, heir to the Lee Atwater legacy, who produces every single one of them). This is, of course, the opening line of their own attack ads. Kerry is now complaining that Bush is attacking him about his joke, by which he now claims he was merely attacking Bush. Is Bush's attack that Kerry insulted the American military less fair than Kerry's attack that Bush is dumb? Well, it is if Bush is just being mean but Kerry is being fair. And in the absence of supporting evidence, the nature of which one cannot even imagine, we can get to that conclusion only if we allow that by nature Bush is morally bad and Kerry morally good.

Once again, it doesn't work. Both parties are completely filled with bad people. Republicans alone didn't corrupt the electoral system with their evil attack ads, any more than Democrats alone did. Voters know this. They distrust politicians, not just Republicans or Democrats.

Dumb assumption number three: Republicans must carry the stigma of everything they've ever done, but Democrats are new creatures every morning. A Democrat can accuse a Republican of doing the same old dirty tricks, as when Kerry so accuses Bush regarding his response to Kerry's joke. The notion that Republicans are the dirty tricksters resonates because of history, of course, namely the Watergate break-in and cover-up. But if even one Republican compares Kerry's joke to his infamous testimony on Vietnam before a Senate committee in which without evidence he ascribed the frequent commission of war crimes to American forces, that Republican will be accused of "swiftboating."

And it's worth remembering that that odd expression arose when former military associates of Kerry wanted to call him to account for that very testimony, thereby, in Democratese, "questioning his patriotism."

Again, this doesn't work. When Kerry says stuff like he did, it is far, far too reminiscent of that earlier episode of testimony and far, far too much in accord with the anti-military stance that his party has taken since 1972. Complaining that he, the decorated veteran, is being attacked by people who never served, Kerry neatly glosses over the reality that Bush did do a stint in the reserves (and dare he imply yet again that serving in the reserves doesn't count, thereby insulting all reservists?). But quite apart from that point, he continues to act as if he and his were at least as highly thought of by people in the military as are Bush and his. The overwhelming majority of enlisted personnel and officers in the American military continue to support Bush and other Republicans.

And it's obvious why. Just play the tape.


Again, all of this is not simply to say that we prefer one party over the other these days. It is to beg, once again, that the opposition party in this country take seriously the evidence of history, the insights of economic science and the political realities, that they move away from the policies and campaign methods that have consigned them to the political wilderness, and that they get with the center right as did Tony Blair's Labour Party, thereby creating a real debate about policy and thereby providing a viable political alternative.

That would be the smart and moral thing to do, and the very thing that would allow the Dems to overcome the 35 years of political irrelevancy on the far left.

Update: Jonah Goldberg has handled all this with matchless wit on NRO Online. Meanwhile, we're trying add to this post this superb photo, appropriately celebrated by the NY Post.