Kerry the GEICO naeanderthal

Jonah Goldberg:

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If it was a joke, it was a pretty bad one, even for him. First, Bush got better grades than Kerry at Yale. More relevant, if launching the Iraq war is a sign of stupidity and a failure to do one's homework, Kerry should avoid calling attention to the fact that he voted to approve it and defended that vote throughout his 2004 presidential campaign.
But whether or not it was a joke, it certainly sounded like Kerry was talking about the troops, because that's the way Kerry talks about everything. Kerry's a bit like one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials, only he's a throwback to a slightly more recent era: Vietnam. All of his ideas were formed from his experience as an anti-Vietnam crusader. He may have run as a born-again war hero in 2004, but his political career was founded on his activism against a war he repeatedly labeled a crime.
That's why few gave Kerry the benefit of the doubt. The idea that the military is the last refuge for the lumpen-proletariat is a Vietnam-era chestnut that continues to pop up in liberal talking points. It wasn't very accurate during Vietnam, and it's even less so now. A timely study of the demographics of enlistees in our all-volunteer military found that the share of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods has declined steadily since 1999 and throughout the war. Moreover, "U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers."
Kerry thinks it's unfair for Republicans to seize on his comments, and to an extent he's right. He obviously didn't intend to insult America's servicemen and women. But Kerry fails to understand that he -- like so many fossils of his generation in the Democratic Party -- sounds like he's frozen in the past. The Democratic position on Iraq is that it's Vietnam all over again, and the only time Kerry ever seems sure of himself is when he's reprising his anti-Vietnam schtick.
Sure, Republicans are seizing on his comments with the same opportunistic zeal Democrats displayed when they recently tried to paint the GOP as soft on sexual predation on congressional pages. But Kerry -- like much of his party -- seems determined to lend plausibility to such criticisms.

If it was a joke it is one that demonstrates the arrogance of todays liberals. Anyone with a different point of view is deemed stupid or ignorant. They played this insult with Eisenhower and Reagan and Bush 41. The alternative theme is evil when confronted with Nixon who was "smart" but venal. That attitude certainly does not elevate the debate on the merit of issues.

The other problem Kerry had is history of denigrating the troops from the very beginning of his political career where he called the war criminals. Only last year he accused the troops of terrorizing Iraqis.

Then his response to criticism of his remarks, rather than explain them was a list of insults. Ten insults in a relatively short, for him, press release made up the bulk of his response. He appears to have adopted the Daily Kos approach to "reasoned" argument. That want play in the real world.