by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n K<\/span>erry surely must be one of the saddest Democratic liabilities around. Some afterthoughts about his latest gaffe, which is one of those rare glimpses into an entire troubled ideology:<\/p>\n (1) How could John Kerry, born into privilege, and then marrying and divorcing and marrying out of and back into greater inherited wealth, lecture anyone at a city college about the ingredients for success in America? If he were to give personal advice about making it, it would have to be to marry rich women. Nothing he has accomplished as a senator or candidate reveals either much natural intelligence or singular education. Today, Democrats must be wondering why they have embraced an overrated empty suit, and ostracized a real talent like Joe Lieberman.<\/p>\n (2) How could Kerry possibly claim that he was thinking of the uneducated in the context of George Bush, who, after all, went to Harvard and Yale?<\/p>\n (3) Some of the brightest and most educated Americans are not only in the military, but veterans of Iraq. Two of the best educated minds I have met \u2014 Col. Bill Hix and Lt. Col. Chris Gibson, both Hoover Security Fellows \u2014 were both Iraqi veterans. What is striking about visiting Iraq is the wealth of talent there, from privates to generals. Without being gratuitously cruel, the problem of mediocrity is not in the ranks of the military, but on our university campuses, where half-educated professors and non-serious students killing time are ubiquitous. Personally, I’d wager the intelligence of a Marine Corps private any day over the average D.C. journalist.\u00a0 Every naval officer I met at the USNA, without exception, seemed brighter than John Kerry, whose “brilliance”, after all, has managed to offend millions of voters on the eve of a pivotal election. If the Democrats lose, it will be almost painful to watch the recriminations against Kerry fly.<\/p>\n (4) This is not the first, but third, time he has denigrated soldiers in the middle of a war-and there is a systematic theme: John Kerry’s assumed superior morality allows him to pass judgment from on high about supposedly lesser folk who become tools of a suspect military: thus we go from limb-loppers and Genghis’ hordes to terrorists to dead-beats. The only constant is that the haughtiness is always delivered in the same sanctimonious, self-righteous, and patronizing tone.<\/p>\n (5) The\u00a0mea culpa<\/i>\u00a0that Democrats are blaming the war and not the warriors is laughable after Sens. Durbin, Kennedy, and Kerry have collectively compared American soldiers to Nazis, Pol Pot’s killers, Stalinists, terrorists, and Baathists.<\/p>\n (6) The problem is that Kerry is not just a senator, but the most recent presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, and thus in some sense, especially given the diminution of Howard Dean, the megaphone of the entire party.<\/p>\n (7) His pathetic clarification, as he blamed everyone from Tony Snow to Rush Limbaugh, displayed the same Al Gore derangement syndrome, and thus raises a larger question: what is it about George Bush that seems to reduce once sober and experienced liberal pros to infantile ranting?<\/p>\n (8) And why is the supposedly lame Bush so careful in speech, and the self-acclaimed geniuses like a Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, or Howard Dean serially spouting ever more stupidities? For all the Democrats’ criticism of George Bush, I can’t think of a modern President who has so infrequently put his foot in his public mouth, and, by the same token, can’t think of any opposition that on the eve of elections seems to have an almost pathological death wish.<\/p>\n The Democrats should use this occasion to have an autopsy of Kerryism, or this strange new tony liberalism, that has turned\u00a0noblesse oblige<\/i>\u00a0on its head. It used to be that millionaire FDRs and JFKs felt sympathy for those of the lower classes and wished to ensure that the\u00a0hoi polloi<\/i>\u00a0had some shot at the American dream. But today’s elite liberals-a Howard Dean, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, George Soros, Ted Turner \u2014 love the high life and playact at being leftists simply because they are already insulated from the effects of their own nostrums that always come at someone poorer’s expense while providing them some sort of psychological relief from guilt. Poor Harry Truman must be turning over in his grave \u2014 from bourbon, cigars, and poker to wind-surfing and L.L. Bean costume-of-the-day says it all.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Kerry surely must be one of the saddest Democratic liabilities around. Some afterthoughts about his latest gaffe, which is one of those rare glimpses into an entire troubled ideology:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[765],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s466Sb-kerryism","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1383,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/democratic-leadership\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":0},"title":"Democratic Leadership?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's The Corner Not Quite the Clinton Solution In all the talk about returning to the Clinton income-tax tables, I have been confused on one small point: As I remember the Gingrich-Clinton years, the tax raises were followed by spending freezes and caps, and some time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2010"","block_context":{"text":"August 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/august-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3697,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ugly-american\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":1},"title":"The Ugly American","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic candidate for president, is at it again with another rude gaffe, this one providing an unintended glimpse of the way many contemporary\u00a0cosmopolitan elites characterize their homeland when abroad. In the past, Kerry has said that our soldiers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2007"","block_context":{"text":"February 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/february-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4577,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-friday-night-fight\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":2},"title":"The Friday Night Fight","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I Have A Plan\"--on and on and on... by Victor Davis Hanson Private\u00a0Papers John Kerry proved tonight that he is a steady, glib, and adept debater who offers a fare of wonkish, comprehensive answers\u00a0ad nauseam\u00a0that can awe an off-guard opponent buried beneath facts, Clinton-like instant recall, and classical Ciceronian rhetorical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2004"","block_context":{"text":"October 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/october-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4567,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/kerrys-dilemma\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":3},"title":"Kerry’s Dilemma","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, how to lose and election by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is a good chance that no matter what Kerry says or does in the final two weeks of this election \u2014 barring some major catastrophe in Iraq, a presidential gaffe, or massive voting irregularity \u2014 he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2004"","block_context":{"text":"October 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/october-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5320,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/four-months-in-vietnam\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":4},"title":"Four Months in Vietnam","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Or how to misdirect public attention. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Everyone knows magicians use misdirection to make their illusions work. While one hand distracts us the other is pulling the egg or coin from its hiding place. Politics is no different, as the Kerry campaign and its shills\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4583,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/kerry-captive\/","url_meta":{"origin":3764,"position":5},"title":"Kerry, Captive","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"An anatomy of flip-flopping. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is a logic to Senator Kerry's flip-flopping that transcends his political opportunism: He is simply\u00a0a captive of the pulse of the battlefield, without any steady vision or historical sense that might put the carnage of the day into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2004"","block_context":{"text":"October 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/october-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3867,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions\/3867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}