March 26, 2004
JUST 8 MORE MONTHS OF LISTENING TO THIS:
When Kerry's Words Obscure His Message: Deviations From Script Don't Always Resonate (John F. Harris, March 26, 2004, Washington Post)
For a national security speech earlier this month, Sen. John F. Kerry's speechwriters produced a draft that included the story of a woman who was suddenly evicted from military housing. Because her husband was killed in Iraq, authorities brusquely told her, she no longer qualified as a military family.
Kerry's prepared speech had the words to crisply convey his outrage. "How can this happen in the United States of America?" the prepared text read. "Who among us could move on short notice when you don't even know where your paycheck will come from?"But when the Massachusetts Democrat delivered the speech, those crisp words went a bit limp. "Now how can this happen in the United States of America in the way that it happens? . . . Who among us thinks it's right to say so quickly, on short notice, before you even know where your next paycheck's going to come from; before you know, if you haven't been working, what skill you can apply to be able to earn a paycheck; before you've been able to adjust to the loss and begin to be able to get back into life?" [...]
The fear among some Kerry backers is that muddy language from Kerry -- at a time when he is still not well known among most voters -- will also cloud the policy distinctions he needs to unseat Bush, and make it easier for Republicans to promote their less flattering definition of what the Democrat represents.
The obfuscation is the message. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 26, 2004 5:40 PM
Although I have great sympathy for this woman, at some point, she does have to move from military housing, just as she'd have to move out of a university's married student apartments if her student husband died.
The part about "when you don't even know where your paycheck will come from" is pure sob-story, and moot, as the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance maximum benefit is $ 250,000, which would be a minimum of four year's income replacement, and more probably, seven year's.
However, SGLI is also semi-voluntary, in that no servicemember must purchase it, but the chain of command would lean pretty hard on any deploying soldier, especially one with dependants, who refused to sign up.
Nonetheless, suppose that this soldier, and family, decided to save $ 16.25/mo by not buying life insurance. How would that differ from any idiotic CIVILIAN family that forbore insurance ?
Surely this woman would have been evicted from her rental home if her husband had died without insurance, and she didn't work.
You're right on, Michael. This story will play with people who are anti-military to start with, but for regular people who have to deal with the realities of life, there is nothing cruel about the military's decision, it is just the way things are. The Democrats message seems to be that government should protect people from reality.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 27, 2004 3:13 PMRobert: When has it ever been otherwise?
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