Willful ignorance & exploitation

I do not believe for a moment that anyone seriously thinks Senator Kerry meant to insult the troops. The full transcript of his remarks have been available in print and on the Internet from objective news sources and Chris Matthews even read them on MSNBC. Plus, it makes no sense for a man who, upon graduating from Yale enlisted in the Navy during wartime, to make such a remark. It makes less sense for a decorated war hero who has devoted much of his adult life to helping veterans to say such a thing. The people who insist they believe it just want to be angry, I guess.

I'm angry, too, of course, but I am not enjoying it. I am upset that a man I admire so made such a ridiculous blunder. It was unprofessional, unstatesmanlike and simply wrong for him to cast aspersions on the President's intelligence because it doesn't move the conversation along. We are in a mess in Iraq, and making a personal attack on the President's education or IQ doesn't help. (Plus he cannot tell a joke to save his life.)

It bothers me more, though, that the President (who spent Viet Nam protecting Alabama as a member of the reserves) and Dick Cheyney (who supported the Viet Nam war but couldn't be bothered to serve) are so cynically keeping this non-story alive, slagging a man who faced enemy fire in the jungle when they were "too busy." It deflects from the callous lies they have told us about our reasons for this war and their exploitation of 9/11, I guess. Oh, and as the niece and goddaughter of someone suffering from Parkinson's, I can't help but notice that no one seems to care about the insensitive remarks made by The First Lady about Michael J. Fox and stem cell research.

JFK once said that as a people, Americans often confuse civility with weakness. How right he was! How refreshing it would be if our politicians would behave like statesmen and have a real debate about Iraq, how we got into it and why, and even more important, what the end game looks like. And, while we're at it, I'd like to see a serious discussion of homeland security and what the hell went wrong in New Orleans.

There's no political hay to be made by that, though. Better for our President and Vice President to keep harping on a silly, bad and highly ill advised joke that the Senator already apologized for. What a lovely civics lesson for our young!

I wish, at times like this, that I wasn't such a true believer. I have always thought that in times of trouble, we get the leadership we deserve. Yes, I'm a Democrat, but my throat closes up when I think of how Gerald Ford helped heal us after Watergate. That's why I keep expecting this Administration to act as though they deserve our trust. And that's why I keep feeling my heart break like this, again and again.