McCain to Kerry: Ooooh Snap!

John Kerry’s in trouble.  On a trip to the West Coast on Monday Kerry made some incredibly bad jokes.  I don’t mean they were in poor taste, I mean they just were not funny.  Here’s a sampling:

“President Bush is from the state of Texas, but now he lives in the state of denial.”

State of denial!  Oh John, how do you come up with this stuff?  What, there’s more?

“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.”

Uhm, John, really?  You want to go there?  Is this a moment of confusion or something, because that war where there was a draft and the easiest way to get out of it was to go to school… that was Vietnam.  This is pretty much a volunteer army*, so that is actually kind of insulting.

Don’t worry, the GOP has swooped in to defend the honor of the troops.  McCain, he of the valient Vietnam service, said:  “Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education.”  Tony Snow jumped on the bandwagon as well, commenting, “This is an absolute insult… If I say something stupid, I apologize as quickly as possible.”** 

True, true, true.  But remember that old adage about words and deeds: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, especially if I don’t have sufficient body armor.” 

In other words:  Kerry shouldn’t have made the stupid joke.  Bush is an easy target – think of something funnier to say.  But if you want to talk about supporting the troops, then get them the flak jackets and equipment they need to survive in the mess you sent them into.  (The “you” I am addressing here is:  the GOP-dominated Dept of Defense and Congress.)  (Also, note that my link there was Fox News – and when they’re calling out the Bush Adminstration for military mismanagement, you know there’s a problem.)

But wait, not be out OOOOHH SNAPPED, Kerry fired back, calling the critics of his efforts at humor “assorted right-wing nut jobs and right-wing talk show hosts.”

Boys, boys.  Allow me to elevate the discourse and talk about some issues:

Besides Kerry’s joke, you know what else is insulting to our troops?  When you pass a law giving your country the authority to act outside the parameters of The Geneva Convention, thus stripping your nation of any moral authority and putting American soldiers at an increased risk of being tortured when they are on the other side of the “interrogation.”  What’s really insulting?  When you urge the passing of just such a bill.  (The “you” I am addressing here is Senator John McCain.)

I know there was this big “McCain vs. Bush” thing a while ago, where McCain was taking a strong position against US use of  torture tactics.  But he backed down.  He gave a speech from the Senate floor endorsing the military commissions act.  So you know what John McCain, leave John Kerry alone for making an ill-conceived joke.  And take your please-don’t-insult-our-boys angst up with your Commander in Chief.

Kerry shouldn’t have made the joke.  But I’d rather have someone mildly insult my education than send me off to the desert, ill-equipped and at a risk of being tortured and killed. 

So who is it that really owes an apology to the American Soldier?

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*  I say “pretty much volunteer army” because of the Back Door Draft, in which Marines who have been discharged for several years are being called back into active duty and in which the forces rely heavily on “weekend warriors,” National Guardsmen and reservists who are now in their third year of active duty overseas.

** Snow’s comment is straight up not true.  He says stupid things all the time without apologizing.  And here are just a few samples:

“We think it’s important that, in doing that, they try to limit as much as possible the so-called collateral damage, not only on civilians but also on human lives.” –-Tony Snow, on Israel’s conflict with Lebanon

“It’s a number.” — Tony Snow, on the U.S. military death toll in Iraq reaching the 2,500 milestone

“I need to get a more precise definition.” — Tony Snow, asked to define civil rights after he said banning gay marriage was a civil rights issue

“Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view.” –-Tony Snow to Helen Thomas, after the longtime White House reporter asked why the U.S. had vetoed an Arab-backed U.N. resolution