Cynical Nation

"I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."

All right, I know I've been living under a rock lately, but really. Granted, I didn't watch Kerry's speech, but I read the transcript and I read all the commentary and analysis afterwards, and I even saw the dorky photo:

but how did I go for four days without knowing its context?

"I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."

Jesus H., you've got to be kidding me.

Here's what I don't understand. I'm guessing that by the time a major party candidate delivers his acceptance speech at his party's convention, said speech has been perused with a fine-tooth comb, and signed off on by dozens of people, easily. Didn't even one of his advisors, speech writers, or consultants pause to say, "Um, Senator, about this 'reporting for duty' opener? Well, you might want to give that some more thought, sir." But then, given that the line in question was absent from the transcript I read, there is always the (horrifying) possibility that it was ad-libbed. Can you imagine the cringes and the groans among Kerry staffers?

And here's something else I've only recently learned: John Kerry's entire tour of duty in Vietnam comprised four months. Where the hell have I been living lately? What kind of blogger am I that I don't know these things?

Now let's see, that works out to, what, one purple heart every 5 weeks or so? Damn, he got them more frequently than I get haircuts.

So that's it, then? His whole career, his entire campaign,his 60-year biography boils down to a mere 16 weeks? We're certainly expected to ignore the years immediately following his military service, in which he slandered and libeled his "band of brothers" as savage brutes and war criminals.

We are similarly asked to ignore his 20-year senate career, in which he seemingly sponsored not a single piece of legislation, but rather sat quietly in the backbenches, voting against defense spending and weapons systems.

That's fine as far as it goes, but we're now asked to elect him commander-in-chief based solely on a 120-day period more than 35 years ago, in which he got his purple heart ticket punched faster than I can earn a free cup of coffee at Chock full o' Nuts?

I'm beginning to sense many Democrats truly believe that Kerry has broad support among the military, based solely on his personal record. How else do you explain stories like this one? It just goes to show how tone deaf this campaign still is on issues of defense and national security. On the bright side, they may not object to military absentee ballots being counted in Florida this year.

Look, I appreciate Kerry's military service, even if it was shorter than a baseball season. He's got to learn, however, that it's going to take more than that to win the White House. It didn't work for Bob Dole, it didn't work for Max Cleland, and it won't work for John Kerry either.