Kerry Bloopers
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published November 2, 2006, 2:36 pm in News.
It's gotta suck to be a politician sometimes. I don't feel too sorry for these guys, but the way they become pariahs so quickly really does make me think twice (or more) about becoming a politician. Think of Dan Quayle's potato(e) blunder. That's an honest mistake, even if the guy did go to an ivy league school. I can never remember whether corrolate has one "r," two "l's," or two of both. Or parallel. Or correspond. If it weren't for the spell checker, I would be lost. And I have a freakin' PhD in English!
Now John Kerry's blunder wasn't quite as trivial as misspelling a word, I admit. I don't think there is any excuse for what he said, in fact. According to the Washington Post, Kerry said this to students at Pasadena City College in California: "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. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
According to his press people, he was supposed to have said this: "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."
Now that's actually kind of funny. Too bad he botched it, right? I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure that that was the joke he was supposed to say. I don't have any proof of this, of course, but I think we have to base our opinions on what Kerry actually said, not what he meant to say.
Bush et al. certainly ran with this assumption (from CNN.com): "The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and shameful," Bush said. "The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots -- and Senator Kerry owes them an apology." Even saying, as quoted in the Washington Post, that "It didn't sound like a joke to me," and on the Rush Limbaugh show, Bush said, "Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words, and our troops deserve the full support of people in government."
Yep, Bush better than anyone should know the consequences of words. So let's examine these words, shall we?
"Did He Just Say That?"
First, there is Kerry's statement. If we assume that he said what he meant, the import is that the military is composed primarily of people who are not college-educated. He was speaking to a college audience, not to high school students, so when he tells them to "study hard" and "do your homework" and "make an effort to be smart," we assume that he's telling them to stay in college and get a college degree. That way, they won't get stuck in Iraq, presumably because they will be able to get a good job and not have to go there.
Some people have said that this is an insult to the American military personnel serving in Iraq (about 140,000 of them). According to this view, these people didn't study hard in college, didn't do their college-level homework, and didn't "make an effort to be smart," so they're now "stuck in Iraq." Perhaps this hinges on "stuck in Iraq," which can be read two different ways. First, there is the reading that says that people who didn't do the aforementioned things get stuck in the military, which means getting stuck in Iraq. Then there is the reading that says that people in the military are actually stuck in Iraq, and those are people who didn't finish college. I think this second reading is the more accurate one, considering the context.
Is it insulting to our service personnel, then? Yeah, it sure is. It's basically saying that the people in the military don't have college degrees. That's why they're there in the first place. Let's examine this, shall we?
Is the Common Perception Really True?
Information is difficult to find on the makeup of our military personnel, but the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank who parades an endorsement by Rush Limbaugh, has an important study published on their website. They have this study on their front page right now, presumably becuase of the Kerry comments, but it really doesn't address the same issue. It attempts to say that the quality of enlistees has not gone down since the Iraq war. In other words, even though we are fighting a tough war in Iraq, the quality of our personnel has gone up, not down. Good people are still enlisting. And this study touts the fact that 98% of enlisted personnel have a high school diploma, while the general youth population is only about 75%.
But Kerry didn't really say anything about enlistees in this war as opposed to the past. And he certainly wasn't saying anything about high school education. He corrolated college education and military service and not getting "stuck in Iraq," which seems to be just a way to say "serve in the military." So we must go elsewhere for information.
The Population Reference Bureau, which I know nothing about, published a study in December 2004 that describes the American Military personnel. According to this study, "Enlistment is also predicted by parents' education (children of college-educated parents are less likely to serve), high school grades (those with higher grades are less likely to serve), college plans (college students are less likely to enlist), race and ethnicity (African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to serve than whites), and attractiveness of military work roles."
Does this bolster Kerry's claim that a college education will allow one not to get "stuck in Iraq"? Well, it shows that he was right, at least. How can one deny the statement that "college students are less likely to enlist" in the military than those who do not go to college? Sure, it may be talking about those who are in college, instead of those who graduated, but the implication would remain.
Does that mean anything, though? It may not. The fact is that Kerry screwed up, and he shouldn't have said what he said. I will go as far as to say he probably knew better and he didn't mean to say what he said. Think of all of those silly things Bush has said that have given us so much misery and laughter over the years. After all, the military are "plenty smart," right? Whatever that means.
Oh, Those Darn Implications!
But there is another problem here, and that is that no one is attacking the fact that the military people are "stuck in Iraq." Many people were promised return dates and those dates were postponed. Or even think about the implication that America itself is "stuck in Iraq." Nobody seems to be arguing that fact.
Let's do this, then: let's admit that Kerry screwed up. Whether you're a Republican looking for him to botch something or a Democrat trying to find some way to apologize for him, let's assume that he shouldn't have said what he said. But he did say it. So let's examine it and see whether it holds any water.
I want to see politicians truly analyze the implications:
1. Are college-educated people less likely to join the military than their high-school educated counterparts?
2. Are the troops "stuck in Iraq"?
3. Is America "stuck in Iraq"?
The person who is willing to answer these questions directly and convincingly will get my vote on Tuesday.
Comments & Trackbacks
By JT · http://www.journical.com November 5, 2006, 6:06 pm. PermaLink
this is the most thoughtful, methodical exploration of The Botched Joke that i've seen so far. nice work of teasing out the assumptions behind what JK said (and what it might mean.) o scholars of rhetoric, read Dr. Wilson's post and tremble!
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