That Paragon Of Opportunity

I am not a fan of Howard Dean. In fact, I am not certain I even like him. This sort of admission is rare for me; I make a real effort to like people. But there is just something about Mr. Dean's irrational pugnacity that I dislike; he evokes in me the same sort of reaction I get when I hear James Carville or Paul Begala speak: I sense that they will say ANYTHING in order to win.

And to curtail any criticism that I am partisan in my dislike, let me say I am also no adorer of John McCain. But I do find myself liking McCain more this morning precisely because of what Howard Dean said in a release sent to the Democratic Party faithful:

"The American people have been waiting for a president who understands the challenges they face, not another out of touch Bush Republican who promises four more years of the same failed leadership. John McCain can try to reintroduce himself to the country, but he can't change the fact that he cast aside his principles to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush for the last seven years. While we honor McCain's military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn't understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years." [emphasis mine]

John McCain a "blatant opportunist"? Really?

One wonders how Mr. Dean can be so wrong. For surely John McCain was not being opportunistic when he made his apparent statement that the US would be in Iraq for a 100 years: this odd sort of opportunism can only be seen as a man who marches to the beat of his own very singular convictions. Isn't the blatant opportunist that guy who jumps on a sudden, popular mood-swing and shouts that he's been feeling similarly? Isn't a blatant opportunist that guy who embraces the popular, especially that padded by recent polls? What's so opportunistic in telling the American voter that Iraq might be a 100-year struggle? And what's so opportunistic about being a Bush supporter in matters of national defense? Isn't President Bush loathed by everybody on the planet? Does Howard Dean even know what it means to be an "opportunist"?†

Oops!

But the facts on the ground, as they might say in military circles, give the lie to Mr. Dean's over-wrought pronouncement. John McCain was not saying that American troops should or would be engaged in military conflict in Iraq for 100 years. He was saying that he could justify an American presence in that country for 100 years, a presence identical to that which the Americans have in South Korea and Germany, you know, a post-conflict presence as peace-keeper, humanitarian and deterrent. Amazingly, Howard Dean and many anti-war protesters forget or ignore the real fact that Harry Truman's troops are still in Korea and Germany (not that they are really Truman's troops, but you get the picture). Plus, it is clear Mr. Dean is choosing to mislead because he hears in Mr. McCain's words a real threat: McCain is telling the truth, while Mr. Dean and those he wants to influence not only stop their ears, they muzzle those who speak plainly, even those in their own party.

But thanks be to ABC News' Jake Tapper (and the WSJ's James Taranto), for directing me (indirectly) to this quote from Howard Dean from 2004, when Dean was stumping for John Kerry:

"The real issue is this: Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

Dean, perhaps blinded by his own sycophancy, clearly gives us fodder for ridicule, for clearly his man in 2004, John Kerry, never rose above the level of a blatant opportunist, at least when it came to throwing up his war credentials as points of honor. If John McCain is an opportunist for reminding us that he has military street cred, then what was John Kerry in 2004? (Taranto makes this point to greater effect, by the way.)

But more importantly, nothing proves that the blatant opportunist in all of this is Howard Dean himself.

Oops!

And to top things off, Mr. Dean mocks Mr. McCain's apparent lack of economic erudition. That's rich, indeed.

Isn't it self-evident that when Americans consider the paragons of all things economic, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Howard Dean are not the first -- or even the second, fifth or tenth -- names that come to mind?

Oops, again.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†(Special thanks to Mort Kondracke, who made similar points last night on "Special Report.")

John Kerry: A Racy Joke?

I will not whip the John Kerry story to death, but there are several more things to say about Mr. Kerry's allegedly "botched joke." The first thing to say is that, if you get a chance to watch the video of Mr. Kerry's stand-up routine, you will see that he does not, at any time, LOOK (or sound) like he is telling any sort of joke. There is no facial cue, no lilt in the voice. He does not offer a softening of the eyes, or even a twinkle in one eye. There is no wink; no feigned laugh, no silly smirk. There is no affect whatsoever that he is trying to be funny. He does not prompt his audience after a long set-up to the punchline. Nay. He gives us nothing other than a very dour face; he looks like he is waiting for the audience to immolate themselves, to burn themselves to death. He does not look like he is expecting a laugh: His face, without doubt, looks like he is saying that none of this is a laughing matter.

That is point 1.

Point 2 is that even if we rewrite Mr. Kerry's joke, adding the "us" that he says he carelessly omitted, it isn't one whit funny. "You know, if you don't do well in school, well, you get us stuck in Iraq." AHHAHHHAHAHAHA! What a howler!

Point 3 is that, irrespective of Mr. Kerry's apology -- in which he apologizes, not for the joke but its misinterpretation (it's the listeners' fault) -- the joke, no matter how accurately or inaccurately delivered, cannot, in any way, be interpreted as NOT a slam of the military. For if Mr. Kerry is telling the truth, that he was merely damning the dumbness of the Bush Administration, he is nonetheless damning the Commander-in-Chief and his underlings. In other words, he is slamming the military. Moreover, he is also slamming the generals and colonels who submit to the alleged idiots in the White House; and he is also suggesting that many of the generals and other military officials who believe the invasion of Iraq was indeed a good thing are also "dumb". In other words, it is a joke belittling the military. Lastly, the joke suggests that all those soldiers who are UNDER the great dolts comprising the leadership of the war are themselves duped into submission, serving under leaders who are foolish, deceitful, empty -- men and women who did not do their homework. In other words, the joke damned every level of the military, no matter how you look at it.

The fourth point is one I brought up here yesterday. I am going to be so bold to suggest that I am one of the first bloggers (if not the first and only) to make the observation, and the observation is this: John Kerry might have been playing the race and class card. For we all know that certain Democrats, like Charlie Rangel and John Conyers, have complained that too many minorities -- inner-city minorities -- and the least privileged members of society, are most vulnerable to military recruitment. We also know that Messrs. Rangel and Conyers supported the reinstitution of the military draft during the 2004 election cycle: they played on the fears of their base under the guise that they were trying to build balance or parity in the recruitment of soldiers.

It appears to me that any sane observer could conclude that Mr. Kerry was playing this very cynical, racially-charged card. Context is everything, no? So it stands to reason that we might want to understand who it was Mr. Kerry may have been aiming his comments at; it is reasonable to ask to whom was Mr. Kerry speaking. You see, his joke was to a college crowd at Pasadena City College. As I stated yesterday, that inner-city college has a student body of over 25,000; 70.3 percent of that student body is made up of minorities. The school's largest minority group is Hispanic; the second is Asian; with the black student population making up just about 6.5%. Was John Kerry playing to this crowd? Was he saying -- since these listeners were minorities -- that they were most vulnerable to recruitment, to death on the war front? Was he playing to two stereotypes; one being that minorities make great cannon fodder for Republican wars; and two, that minorities are only able to save themselves if they rise above their apparent dumbness by doing well in school (I do not think there is ANY apparent dumbness, by the way)? Was Mr. Kerry propping himself up as a defender of minorities from alleged Republican indifference to their plight?

I think a good case could be made that he was so propping himself. This is not to suggest that Mr. Kerry is at all a racist himself. It is merely to posit some reason why Mr. Kerry said what he said. Here is a good question: Would Mr. Kerry have told this joke to an Ivy League college crowd? Had he ever told that joke to a group of affluent white folks? If he has told this joke before, or if he would have told this joke to a bunch of rich kids at Harvard, then my observations here are irrelevant and misplaced.

One final little note: Amy Kane of Atlantic Avenue passed this very informative link along to me. It is a very detailed study of the actual, rather than perceived, demographics regarding military recruitment.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: John Kerry, Botched Joke, Race

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.

Technorati tags: John Kerry, Imus In The Morning, Kerry, Botched Joke, Iraq, Pasadena City College, minorities

It's A Matter Of Average Gossip

[A commentary on the Yale grades of Messrs. Bush and Kerry]

It should be considered the eighth deadly sin, right after sloth. Gossip. Gossiping. Bearing, not false witness, but unsubstantiated witness, or careless witness, with the intent to harm, sully, impugn. Most if not all people are either victims or perpetrators, or both, in the deadly rumor-mongering which fills each day at work, on the radio and TV; in the papers, and in bedrooms. It is an insidious evil, prejudicing people against one another.

I recall a friend in college who was singularly good at it. Once, he said of a particular woman, "X and Y and Z. Did you know?" and for the life of me, I could not separate her from his statements, even when there was utterly no way of determining the truth, even for him, of what he said. My friend had this way of reducing people to a stain, to a small blight. It was like he was able to point to a zit on the face, the hidden face of the soul. His remarks incontrovertibly prevented you from NOT staring at the blemish, even if it was a blemish merely suggested, intimated, even invented; spoken with casual facility.

"Did you know I heard she had ...?" Fill in the blank with a pencil, and you'll discover that you'll never be able to erase what you've written.

It was amazing what control gossip gave my friend.

Politics, political news, and much political analysis is rife with the power of gossip. It is a destructive force. And now, if I can manage it, I would like to address one bit of gossip that has haunted us for the past several years: "Did you know that George Bush was a mediocre student at Yale?"

Now I pick this one gossipy tidbit largely because of this week's equally prurient and gossipy revelation that Sir John Kerry's Yale grades were slightly less impressive than President Bush's. It is current news. And there is viable news in the revelation; as there is viable news in the fact that GW Bush was not a high-performer at Yale.

But it is the gossip that is really the news, or more accurately, it is the false impression and damage to character that the gossip-mongers generated around President Bush, about his alleged idiocy, that is newsworthy. For Bush's malapropisms and tongue-stumblings were used repeatedly as indications of his intellectual inferiority. Swirling around this were discussions that Bush was a Yale-legacy child, you know, Ivy-League merely because daddy went to Yale, too. How else to explain how such a nitwit made it into Yale in the first place?

Attached to all this was dizzying hypocrisy. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were often presented as men of the people. But if it was suggested that maybe America needed leadership that came from something less common than "men of the people", the same supporters of Clinton and Gore's commonality were always quick to point out that both men attended elite colleges and graduate schools (Georgetown, Yale, Harvard), where only uncommon people studied. But when a Bush supporter, for example, pointed out his training at Yale and Harvard, it was dismissed as privileged elitism, and proof that Bush was a silver-spoon aristocrat with a rather slow-wit. Bush could never be a man of the people.

In the 2004 election cycle, it was Kerry that was considered "thoughtful", "engaged", "nuanced." But Bush was detached and over his head, repetitious; unable to collect a thought without Cheney and Rove whispering in his ear (allegedly with a secret device, as reported after the second debate. Remember? Of course, it was Bush's bullet-proof vest bulging from the middle of his back, but to many, it was a secret-decoder ring thing-a-ma-jig.) Kerry showed mastery over subject matter, while Bush, in keeping with his Yale mediocrity, was a boorish parrot.

Of course, that Democrats opposed a "mediocrity" as President proved that they preferred exceptional people; that only the uncommonly good should sit in the Oval Office; that only the gifted and "nuanced" should be in high places. The message from Democrats to all graduating high school seniors in America: When it comes to the White House, mediocrity need not apply.

(As I long suspected, the countless graduation speakers to which I have listened have been lying when they urged me to believe in myself; to work hard and aim high; to prove to the world that nothing is impossible. To deep-thinking Democrats, Bush could not be President on the merits, for mediocrity can only succeed by stealing elections. George Bush could only dream about stealing the impossible; not earning it.)

And now, tucked away in his recently released military records, come John Kerry's grades from his days at Yale. Sundry critics insist that had Kerry opened these files prior to Election Day 2004; had he done battle with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; he'd be President now.

Perhaps. But to some critics it is clear that Kerry was reluctant to release said files precisely because the mystique of his towering intellect would have dissipated in the blandness of being average, in the tepidity of mediocrity. Odd that the supporters of Kerry think that Bush's average grades preclude him from office; and yet Kerry's average transcripts would have catapulted him to victory.

I think that had Kerry's transcripts hit the streets in October of '04, he would have lost the election on a far larger scale.

But I am not really about to weigh in on President Bush's or John Kerry's grades. They were mere boys at the time. But the gossip should be rebuked with the truth, and the truth is that Bush was a better student than Mr. Kerry. Marginally better, but better nonetheless. (Kerry had four Ds his freshman year, whereas Bush had only one during his four years at Yale.)

Finally, this excerpt from the Boston Globe (June 7, 2005):

"Gaddis Smith, a retired Yale history professor who taught both Kerry and Bush, said in a telephone interview that he vividly remembers Kerry as a student during the 1964-1965 school year, when Kerry would have been a junior. However, Smith said he doesn't have a specific memory about Bush.

Based on what Smith recalls teaching that year, Kerry scored a 71 and 79 in two of Smith's courses. When Smith was told those scores, he responded: ''Uh, oh. I thought he was good student. Those aren't very good grades." To put the grades in perspective, Smith said that he had a well-earned reputation for being tough, and noted that such grades would probably be about 10 points higher in a similar class today because of the impact of what he called ''grade inflation."

Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy. Bush has said he was a C student."

According to the same article, Kerry's highest grade was earned his senior year, an 89 in poli-sci.

Not that grades matter, though they do if you are bashing a person running as a Republican candidate for President. Bush's grades were used against him, and there was no way in hell many Democrats could permit that the man could indeed be smarter than his grades. Unless that man was John Kerry.

But the truth is that everyone knew Bush's grades years ago, and no one knew Kerry's. Hence, the only logical conclusion that can be deduced is this: It was mere gossip that placed Kerry above Bush in academic prowess. In other words, it was gossip and not fact that gave Kerry the edge over Bush in perception.

Hopefully, reality always trumps fiction, and truth silences gossip.

"Hey, did you hear that so-and-so went to this party and ...?"

Gossip: Kill it if you can.

PS. So, if grades have been inflated by 10 points, then Kerry scored a 99 in poli-sci, once, and Bush thrice scored 98 (in anthropology, history and philosophy). Hmm. Got to tell you that poli-sci was for me easier (and duller) than philosophy. Of course, I was a philosophy major: I have a prejudice toward the love of wisdom.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Bush's Grades, John Kerry's Grades, G.W. Bush's Grades, G.W. Bush's Grade Point Average, Grade Point Average, Bush's GPA, Bush's G.P.A., Yale University, GPA,