The Unelectable John Kerry

John Kerry has once again proved why he lost the 2004 Presidential Election to the reprehensible George W Bush - he can't help but shoot himself in the foot when he opens his elongated mouth. Coming off the back of the "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" that arguably lost him the Presidency, he comes out with this humdinger:

"You know, 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.
If you don't you get stuck in Iraq."

The clarification that it was a botched joke, that he was trying to mock Bush, is simply not good enough. It implies that soldiers fighting in Iraq are stupid, or lazy, or both. Kerry is an intelligent, highly educated man. Whether or not he did mis-speak, and as a former lawyer and current lawmaker his attention to detail should be able to say what he means, is irrelevant. He will have confirmed in the eyes of many Americans preparing to vote that the Democrats are eltist and snobs, that they look down on those who have to do the grunt work, that they look down on those who go out to fight and die.

The Democrats must be loving Kerry at the moment - not only did he fuck up winning the White House in 2004, now he seems to be working hard to fuck up the mid-terms.

But there is another reason why Kerry's mistake is egregious - a perhaps more fundamental reason. He has actually touched on something crucial - that a lot of those who have to go off and fight for the US in wars actually come from poor, or ill-educated, or deprived backgrounds. Sure, that is a generalisation, and Kerry himself is an example of someone who came from a prosperous background and who fought for America. But Kerry had the choice - he chose to fight in Vietnam - had he not wanted to, he could easily have stayed at home (as Bush Jnr did). In one of the few poignant, and non-partisan, moments in Michael Moore's hysterically liberal Farenheit 9/11 a mother explains why she has told her children to join the army:

"So I, as a mother, started teaching my children... about the options that the military could do. They would take them around the world. They'd see all the things that I,as a mother, couldn't let them see. It'd pay for their education that I, as their mother and father, couldn't pay... The military is an excellent option for the people of Flint."

The poor and the uneducated in America have no choice - they can join the military, or they can be unemployed. The draft has gone, and been replaced by economic conscription.

As the effective figurehead of the Democratic movement, Kerry could - and should - be highlighting this is an issue for the US. The Democrats should be campaigning on it, and pointing out that those on the ground in Iraq (and, lest we forget, Afghanistan) do not have the breaks and the background of the incumbent President. Some may chose to fight, others are fighting because they have no choice.

Instead Kerry went for the cheap shot, and fucked up a strikingly unfunny dig at Bush. And in doing so he has missed the chance to raise a crucial issue and also may have damaged his party's chances of gaining control of the House and the Senate.

Kerry, shut up and go away.