DEMS' TROOP-BASHER. . .
NEW YORK POST
Opinion
November 1, 2006
The Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nominee stepped on his tongue in California this week - and in so doing gave the American people yet another reason to distrust Democrats on defense and national security.
On Monday, speaking at a college campaign rally, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). told the student-heavy crowd:
<<< "If you make the most of [education], if you study hard and 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." >>>
It was, Kerry said yesterday, a joke misspoken.
Ha, ha.
But we're betting that the tens of thousands of young men and women now in Iraq, those about to deploy and those who already have served there - many more than once - aren't laughing.
Nor is President Bush.
"The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer Armed Forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots - and Sen. Kerry owes them an apology," said the president.
As of last night, no apology was forthcoming.
Nor, interestingly, was there a word of disapprobation from Democratic Party leaders - many of whom have been working diligently to undercut Bush's War on Terror; doubtless many others would like to, but just don't dare.
Kerry himself has been trashing the military ever since returning from Vietnam in 1969 - which is why so many fellow vets hold him in deep disregard.
Not only is Kerry arrogant and insulting regarding America's contemporary military - he's also just plain wrong.
Military recruits today are actually more educated - not less - than their civilian counterparts of similar ages: More than 90 percent of recruits have a high school diploma vs. about 75 percent of the broader population.
As American Forces Press Service reported last year, "Military recruits actually have much higher average aptitudes than the general youth population . . . In fiscal 2005, 67 percent of recruits scored above the 60th percentile on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. The test is designed so that the average young person will score 50 percent . . ."
Sen. John McCain, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and many others also said that Kerry owes servicemembers an apology.
But Kerry claimed Republicans were mischaracterizing his words: "If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy."
Now, where on earth would anyone get the idea that John Kerry would disparage American troops during wartime?
Perhaps because John Kerry brazenly told Congress in 1971 that American soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."
That was a hateful, self-serving lie.
So was Monday's gibe.
True, it appears that John Kerry doesn't think that today's servicemen and women are war criminals.
Just that they're stupid.
Any wonder Democrats aren't taken seriously on national security?
For shame, senator.
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