Talking Their Language: John Kerry Tells A Joke With "Nuance"

I had not heard the story until today. I read about it in the recent column of Chicago Tribune essayist John Kass, and it sheds light on John Kerry and his Ohio loss in 2004. Kass reflects on that exciting time, just before Americans rushed the polls to cast their vote for President; Kass muses about sundry Kerryisms that may have not played well in the American heartland:

My absolute favorite Kerryism was the time he tried to sound like Jethro Bodine from the old "Beverly Hillbillies" TV show.

That's the one that cost him the presidential election in 2004, by losing him Ohio.

He dressed up in hunting gear so new there must have been tags hanging from the ankles. He had a shotgun, since the symbolism was about manliness, as he moseyed into a general store with several TV news cameras.

Kerry would purchase a hunting license and go hide in a field and let a guide shoot some geese, which another aide would carry so the senator could have the benefit of the symbolism without the responsibility of goose blood.

But first he needed the license. Yet instead of asking for one in a normal voice, Kerry inexplicably decided to use country dialect.

"Kin ah git me a hunting license here?" said Kerry, the country man.

The folks in the general store were frightened to hear an odd twang emanating from Kerry's Boston adenoids. Perhaps he thought that they weren't highly educated, and so he had to talk "their language."

One wonders whose language John Kerry was speaking on Monday when he said the following to a college crowd at Pasadena City College in California:

"You know education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and 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."

Oops. Ouch. Bing, bang, bomb.

I recall John Kerry supporters in the last election cycle describing the Massachusetts senator as being more "nuanced" than his opponent, George W. Bush. And the quote above shows that they were absolutely right. The only real question, though, is how much nuance is good for the Democratic Party. For a prima facie viewing of Kerry's remarks, uttered, as they were, to college kids in the inner city (Pasadena City College enrollment data shows that minorities comprise 70.3 percent of the 25,000 students enrolled there; I found the data here; hispanics and Asian minority groups are ably represented), it is evident that most reasonable listeners would conclude that Mr. Kerry is saying that the dumb student ends up stuck as a soldier in Iraq. His juxtaposition of you (one would assume he means "you who are listening and are in school") with "smart" and "stuck" would indeed led credibility to the wild theory that Mr. Kerry is warning students that those who do not fare well in school end up as cannon fodder.

But we KNOW Mr. Kerry is too nuanced for such a misleading and unfortunate suggestion. What nuanced listeners realize, of course, is that Mr. Kerry is suggesting that if you are a poor student, like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld, then you WILL become stuck in Iraq. Of course, one wonders what Mr. Kerry might mean comparing his scholarly achievements with Mr. Bush's, since I showed last year that Mr. Kerry is a certain victim of his own rather average gossip.

It is all, in Mr. Kerry's own words, the result of a "botched joke." OK. That's fine. But it is also about an administration ripping Mr. Kerry's words out of context -- a city college full of minority kids most "vulnerable" to military recruitment (or so it goes) -- and distorting them for political ends, or so Mr. Kerry asserts. Odd that he should not have taken the high road here, bolstering his broad mythology, arguing that he is that man of the people who speaks their language with nuance and subtlety.

HERE'S SOME SUBTLETY

During Mr. Kerry's appearance on the Imus in the Morning program a few minutes ago, Mr. Kerry said two things that all of us have heard too often. In fact, we have heard them often enough to know that there is nothing in them.

In defending himself from charges that he insulted American troops, he said that the real insult is Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, you see, should apologize for getting America stuck in Iraq, Mr. Kerry said; for it was Rumsfeld who "did not send enough troops [to Iraq]."

Later in the interview, Don Imus remarked that it was not just the White House that was damning Mr. Kerry's remarks. Even Sen. John McCain jumped into the fray with these not-so-subtle words:

“The suggestion that only the least-educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today.”

In reply to Imus' little bomb, Mr. Kerry said that though he considered Mr. McCain a friend, he found McCain's comments unfortunate. "But the fact is," Mr. Kerry went on (I paraphrase), "John McCain has been a cheerleader for a failed policy, and McCain wants to put more troops in Iraq, as many as 100,000 more, and I do not believe we should do that because we do not even have that many troops, and more troops would attract more jihadists and terrorist attacks, resulting in more American military deaths."†

Now, I know you think I am making this all up, but I am not. Mr. Kerry is so nuanced that he believes Donald Rumsfeld should apologize for NOT sending more troops into Iraq, and Mr. McCain should apologize for wanting to send more. This paradox is a typical Democratic message; it says two contradictory things and pretends that people do not notice the absurdity.

Of course, this is all nuanced language, HIGHLY nuanced, the parlance of parlors in Beacon Hill. It is misunderstood, you see, by all us dolts who did not do well in school.

Peace.

†(UPDATE ADDED at 11:24 EST: If you would like to read what one decent guy thinks about the whole thing involving Kerry, and if you would like to hear Mr. Kerry's Imus comments for yourself, go to this blog for both.)

(PS. Thanks to blogger Amy Kane at Atlantic Avenue for finding the photo at the top of this post.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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