Michelle Malkin has the details on John F. Kerry's unbelievable statement at a campaign rally for Phil Angelides (the guy running against Arnold) yesterday in California. Captain's Quarters and many others are picking up on the story. Here is what Kerry said:

'You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.'

Scratch a Democrat plutocrat and you find utter contempt for our troops, even when that serial heiress—marrying elitist draped his presidential campaign in the trappings of an American Legion or VFW meeting. There is no mistaking Kerry's belief that only losers sign up to serve their country in Iraq. This is personal for me, as I know certain young men, absolutely the best of their generation, who did just that.

If (and it is doubtful) the GOP had the wit to capitalize on this gaffe, it could become a teachable moment for an important segment of the electorate. The remark encapsulates both the phoniness of the Democrats' cry that they "support" our troops, and the elitism and contempt they use to buck up their own fragile egos.

Hat tips: Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson  10 31 06

Ed Lasky adds:

This is another example of the Europeanization of the Democratic Party elites. The paradigm of losers enter the military, use force, engage in cowboyism because they don't have the intelligence to engage in sophisticated cocktail party chat that comes from Elite educational backgrounds and cultures. Talk about a cultural war.

This article by Robert Kaplan points out the origin of the disdain that elites feel towards the military. It is mostly about the media, and comes from one of their own. A brief excerpt:

As with medieval churchmen, the media class of the well—worried has a tendency to confuse morality with sanctimony: Those with the loudest megaphones and no bureaucratic accountability have a tendency to embrace moral absolutes. After all, transcending politics is easier done than engaging in them, with the unsatisfactory moral compromises that are entailed.

To wit, some of our most prestigious correspondents have occasionally remarked that the only favoritism they harbor is toward the weak or toward the victims in any crisis. That may do in church, but it does not necessarily lead to trustworthy analysis. As Musil hinted, bankers are more dependable than angels because the desire for wealth preserves critical thinking more than does the desire for love. In any case, weakness defines a power relationship, not a moral attribute. One side's being weaker than the other — or harboring more victims — does not necessarily mean that its cause is just or even moral. Rather, it may mean that it has miscalculated militarily or adopted a more cynical policy toward its own civilians. Victims need to be humanely attended to, but it does not follow that their side in a conflict is entitled to political support by way of sympathetic news coverage. In an essay about growing European anti—Semitism, the French social scientist Alain Finkielkraut warns against those who evince 'unerring solicitude' toward those who commit 'reprehensible acts' merely because such acts issue from exploitation and oppression. His target is not the global media but European elites in general, but there is an overlap.