Decision ‘08

Hitchens On Kerry

Could I resist blogging about a Christopher Hitchens piece in the Wall Street Journal focusing on John Kerry’s latest humiliation? No, I most certainly could not:

Regrettable though it might be for the United States military to become an untouchable “third rail” in American politics, there can be little sympathy for someone who keeps on brushing against that rail just to see what will happen. One could have assumed that Sen. John Kerry, who has reason enough to wake up whimpering and biting his knuckles when he reflects on past embarrassments, had learned this lesson. He’s almost spoiled for choice in the matter–from the cringe-making “reporting for duty” to the sickly discovery that he had been part of a “band of brothers” rather than a bunch of killers, to the phantom “Christmas in Cambodia.”

Yet of all the days that he might want to have back and do over again, last week’s clumsy appearance in Pasadena must be the most whimper-inducing of all.

The senator’s labored defense of himself is so lame that it has to be true. He had intended (pause for thigh-slapping and guffawing) to make a truly original joke about the IQ and educational level of the chief executive. His crack team of gag-writers had toiled on the joke and combed all the bugs out of it. It was there, poised on the pad and ready for launch. And it fizzled. (Funny–that punchline usually activates the easy-laugh track, as Messrs. Leno, Stewart, Maher and Colbert demonstrate with airy ease practically every night of the week.) And out of the syntactic chaos came the impression that Mr. Kerry thought only a dumb jerk could end up in uniform in Iraq.

No wonder Mr. Kerry feels hard done-by: He can’t recount a joke that practically tells itself and has been road-tested to work with almost Pavlovian certainty, especially on campuses. Surely everybody–any fool, in fact–knows that it’s Mr. Bush who is supposed to have the difficulties with timing and articulation? Ah, the unfairness of it all. The senator was all in favor of the joke before he actually had to tell it.

It shouldn’t be necessary to add…read the rest…

2 Responses to “Hitchens On Kerry”

1 Paul Says:
November 4th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
The best part for me was the resolution he proposed at the end:

“I propose a compromise. Sen. Kerry and his party should publicly demand that the U.S. military be allowed to recruit openly on elite campuses. And the supposed reason for the ban on ROTC–the continuing refusal of the armed services to admit known homosexuals–should be dispelled at a stroke by a presidential order rescinding the Clintonian nonsense of “don’t ask/don’t tell.” It is already outrageous that the CIA, for example, has been firing Arabic and Persian translators because of their supposed private sexual lives. That policy certainly could have come from bin Laden himself.

This is going to be a long war, and not just in Iraq, and we have learned something this week about the perceived inequality with which it is shared and experienced. It would be good if a sideshow spat in a rather mediocre election season could have the effect of making two self-evident wrongs into a right.”
2 Major Minor Says:
November 13th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
There’s no particular reason not to hire CIA translators because of homosexuality, but since each soldier is potentially the emergency blood-bank for his comrades on the front lines (which is why blood types are on dog tags), it’s maniacal to accept enlistees from a group whose likelihood of carrying HIV-AIDS is astronomically higher. Note that we’re not talking about older men in committed relationships, but primarily 18-28-year-old young men. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the gay community can give you the odds.

Sometimes I suspect that the true impetus behind inserting gays in the military is to discourage soldiers from serving in combat or combat support units. It would scare most thinking people off, for sure.

For all the liberal slop about “supporting the troops” — not one word of which is believed by any soldier — the party-line refusal to accept ROTC or recruitment on most Ivy League campuses says it all.

The Left’s lying pretense to “support the troops” is typical of their hypocrisy and reluctance to speak the truth. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the military makes no bones about hating the liberal voters and their leadership.

And yes, that includes the phonies like Kerry and “Abscam” Murtha, too.