Kerry's "Rovian" Slip

John Kerry's insistence on keeping his "botched joke" controversy alive by refusing to apologize for two days opened the door to an examination of his past comments. Everybody by now is familiar with the famous 1971 Senate testimony, but another comment from 1972 has surfaced which sounds surprisingly familiar:

Kerry apologized Wednesday for the 2006 campaign trail gaffe that some took as suggesting U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq were undereducated. He contended the remark was aimed at Bush, not the soldiers.

In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."

"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'

"Equally as important, a volunteer army with our present constitutional crisis takes accountability away from the president and put the people further from control over military activities," he wrote.

All of this leads me to believe that Kerry's comment was not just a "botched joke", but more of a Freudian slip which revealed how he really feels about the troops.

Maybe I should describe it as a "Rovian" slip since Karl Rove was able to get a little mileage with it in an interview with ABC:

(ANN) COMPTON: Sen. John Kerry has made a statement about Iraq. Do you take him at his word that he was talking about the president and not the troops?

(KARL) ROVE: I take him at his word when he insulted America's fighting forces. This is a habit that he's had over the years. He did it when he came back from Vietnam and there's no way that an individual looking at what he said, which is available on the Internet. Go on and look at yourself. Any American can. This guy was insulting America's troops by suggesting that if you were stupid you went to Iraq.

Karl's gotta be loving this. And from the Washington Times:

"No matter whose idea it was for Mr. Kerry to retreat [from the hustings], said one delighted Republican on Capitol Hill, "He's cutting and running from the campaign trail, after learning he was for his comments before he was against them."

And from David Letterman (h/t Political Diary):

"This guy can lose elections he's not even in" -- David Letterman, speaking on CBS

By the way, Kerry's idiotic remarks came at a campaign event where he was trying to help the hapless Phil Angelides beat Arnold Schwarzenegger for California governor. According to this Field poll, Arnold has now opened up his biggest lead - 16 points - on Angelides. Thanks Sen. Kerry!