Consider these two famous political gaffes:
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, 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.” - John Kerry, October 2006 |
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“There are some who feel like that the conditions are such [in Iraq] that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on.” - George Bush, July 2003 |
By now everyone knows about Kerry’s “mangled joke”. As the expression goes, the switchboard lit up. Democrats wondered; what was he thinking? Kerry’s enemies were certain they knew.
Bush lost no time condemning Kerry’s remark as a slam against the intelligence of American soldiers. A storm surge of bloggers, media commentators, and cartoonists washed over Kerry’s explanations. Bill O’Reilly has been going on for days about how this one comment will turn the election back over to the Republicans.
When I heard the comment I was certain that Kerry had intended a slam against Bush, not against the soldiers. The implication was that a smarter president, one who had paid attention in his more difficult classes, would not have invaded Iraq. Later this was exactly what Kerry claimed:
Mr Kerry’s office said he had intended to say: “You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”
It’s all too easy to leave out the most important connective tissue of a sentence when it conveys an idea that seems perfectly obvious to the speaker. Just ask Neal Armstrong.
But the SwiftBoats did their damage a long time ago. While Bush can say “Bring it on” without the slightest consequences from his base, Kerry cannot sneeze without someone making it into high treason.
Kerry is inept at apology. After counterattacking, he trotted out the old; “I’m sorry my words were misinterpreted” stuff. The last public figure to apologize well was Bill Clinton:
“What I want the American people to know, what I want the Congress to know, is that I am profoundly sorry for all I have done wrong in words and deeds,” Clinton said. “I never should have misled the country, the Congress, my friends and my family. Quite simply, I gave in to my shame.”
- Bill Clinton, 1998
None of that “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” two-step. He said “I am sorry for what I did.” It was a real apology. His friends were sure he meant it; his enemies dismissed it out of hand. Personally his apology didn’t mean much to me because I was furious with him. I knew his personal foible would overshadow his presidential record, and some total loser would occupy the Oval Office in 2000.
As someone once said; “In politics, when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” The result is a delicate balance between the candidate who weighs every word so carefully that he is accused of being “wooden” and “scripted”, or the one who speaks extemporaneously with the risk of giving negative sound bites to his opponents. Rare is the candidate who combines spontaneous speech with enough charm to weather the inevitable storms.
If you hate John Kerry, you can take comfort from the fact that his political career is pretty much over. Because…
“Political image is like mixing cement. When it’s wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there’s almost nothing you can do to reshape it.”
- Walter Mondale
Personally, I’m not deciding my votes on the ‘outrageous gaffe of the week’. And the vast amounts of money candidates spend attacking each other on TV is completely wasted on me; I don’t watch professional wrestling.
I make no apology for that.