I bet Neville Chamberlain wishes he hadn’t announced “Peace in our time” to his British countrymen after meeting Hitler in 1938 in Munich. When General Joe Hooker laid out his battle plans before the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, he reportedly bragged to the other Union generals, “The Lord Himself could not defeat me here.” I imagine former President Bill Clinton wishes he had never gone on national TV declaring, “I never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” If we are honest, all of us have said things we regret. 

In the “Misspeak Hall of Infamy,” however, Jephthah from the Book of Judges stands out as uttering the Mother of all Misspeaks. In Judges 11:30-31, Jephthah vows to God:

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

The tragedy of this vow has outlived Jephthah. He did defeat the Ammonites. Then, when he returned home victoriously, his only daughter emerged from his house with a tambourine, celebrating her father’s victory. As the father of four children, I cannot imagine a more heartbreaking scene as the victorious Jephthah realizes what he vowed to do.

In the waning hours of this turbulent presidential election season, I suspect both Vice President Harris and former President Trump secretly wish they could get a “do-over” on some of the things each have said in the past. However, the “do-over” wishes are probably stronger in Harris’s campaign headquarters than in Trump’s.

Jonathan Chait recently noticed that Trump is delighting in, and Harris is regretting some of her verbal doozies from the past. For example, during Harris’ “nobody is more liberal than me” phases, she strutted her LBGTQ+ credentials for all to see, especially when it came to taxpayers funding “gender-affirming care” for prisoners and illegal aliens.

The Trump MAGA crowd has taken all her “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe she said that” lines and fashioned an ad that plays during football games on Saturday and Sunday:

Kamala, like Jephthah, is boxed in by her own words. She cannot go on TV and retract her earlier support for taxpayer-funded “gender-affirming care” for illegal immigrants and convicts in prison. She is already losing altitude, and challenging the lavender mafia will not help her campaign.

When Charlamagne tha god praises Trump’s add as “effective,” Kamala, like Jephthah of long ago, knows that she did herself in. Keep your words soft and tasty. That way, we can eat them and not choke.

Ned Cosby, a frequent contributor to American Thinker, is a former pastor, veteran Coast Guard officer, and a retired English high school teacher. His novel OUTCRY is a love story exposing the refusal of Christian leaders to report and discipline clergy who sexually abuse our young people. This work of fiction addresses crimes that are all too real. Cosby has also written RECOLLECTIONS FROM MY FATHER’S HOUSE, tracing his own odyssey from 1954 to the present. For more info, visit Ned Cosby. 

Image: YouTube screen grab