All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men

…have been trying to put John Kerry’s remarks back together again.

When you’re all about the clarity of truth and the purity of language, that doesn’t work. It is still spin.

I’ve been listening to a lot of the debate and argument over Sen. Kerry’s remark about ‘getting an education or winding up in Iraq.’ It sounded so tasteless, surely there would be a correction. Out of great respect for the military, I really wanted to know what he meant by that remark being a ‘botched joke’ that he didn’t finish right. We all blow punchlines at times, but I couldn’t imagine what that one was supposed to have been, to have made what he said…any better.

So I heard it. The missing words were “like Bush.” The line should have been something like, ‘get an education, study and work hard, or you may wind up stuck in Iraq like Bush,’ hoping to take a shot at the president’s war policy. What’s the joke? In a lot of news analysis, media folks are acting as apologists for Kerry, saying he actually meant to slam “Bush’s ignorance,” and variations of that slur. Does that make it okay?

Why is the former Democratic presidential candidate slamming the sitting president and his policies, anyway? What does this say to our enemies? To our military men and women serving this country?

Last Memorial Day, Lt. Col. Oliver North was on my radio show, talking with me about the highest honor of serving in the military, and about the strict requirements to enter military service. All my life I have admired and greatly respected those who serve our country, but I didn’t know how high those standards were to even qualify. Col. North spelled them out — the tests they had to pass, the clean record they had to have proof of — and they were higher standards than just about any job application for any other employment required in our country today.

That’s just to be able to sign on for several years of total disciplined service with other troops, possibly deployed in battle not only in harms way, but in constant threat of terrorism, in harsh conditions, all in service to other human beings.

Early in the day today, Sen. Kerry cancelled all his campaign appearances. He would be a detriment to any candidate and a distraction for the media, he decided. Late in the day, Kerry issued a printed apology — in writing so that the media would not have more tape to replay. Here’s how it began: “I sincerely regret that my words were misintepreted…”

Only he knows how sincere it was, and I would never judge anyone’s sincerity. But the regret is that “my words were misinterpreted.” I know that a lot of military men and women, and their families, were offended. He regrets that, and I have no doubt of that. But even his original tagline “or winding up in Iraq” was demeaning on the face of it, and it has done its damage.

Always honorable, even when wounded, some of our troops released a photo today from Iraq holding up a hand-painted sign saying “Halp Us Jon Carry, We R Stuk in Irak”. Classy. Another characteristic of our service men and women.

Members of our government are ‘service’ men and women, and they should not be disgracing themselves and the highest offices in the land by taking cheap shots at other members of government, or media people, or any of us — and certainly not, even by inference, the men and women who serve in the military. In just a few soundbites yesterday, Sen. Kerry used the terms “Republican hate machine,” “right wing nut jobs,” “Republican hacks,” and other similar vitriolic language. That’s angry and mean.

You know, it’s interesting, but I haven’t heard demeaning language from politicians who uphold the sanctity of life. It’s an ethic that speaks consistently with respect for the dignity of every person — no matter what their stage of intellectual or emotional development.