Kerry was right: The non-college-bound ARE most likely to enlist!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

.IMO John Kerry is making a HUGE mistake by not clarifying what he said in line with available data on educational aspirations and enlistment in the military.

Since 1987, the military have required at least 90 percent of those who score average or above on the Armed Forces Qualification Test to have high school diplomas. 100 percent of the up to 4 percent the military can admit from marginal scorers on the test must be high school graduates. So when you are talking about military enlistees, you are talking about high school graduates.

The best available data on collegegoing plans of high school seniors come from an annual survey called "Monitoring the Future" (MTF).

According to the most definitive study, Kerry was right: Enlisting in the military is strongly associated with lack of interest in going to college!

From http://newton.nap.edu/books/0309085314/html/200.html :

"Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth: Implications for Military Recruitment

Predicting Propensity to Enlist from MTF Data

... Bachman et al. (2000b) predicted propensity from eight demographic variables ... the two most important predictors were race/ethnicity and college plans. Consistent with previous data, blacks were more likely than other race or ethnic groups to intend to join while those with college plans were least likely to indicate a propensity to join the military.""

[C_U_L8R]

1. In a sucky republican economy such as this

it doesn't much matter if you've got a great education or not.
Sometimes enlisting is the ONLY choice... thanks to the republicans

[emulatorloo]

2. ENOUGH ALREADY - he was making a joke about Bush

Kerry was not talking about the troops

http://www.johnkerry.com/news/releases/release.html?id=34

--
Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.

If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to stamp -- rubber-stamp policies that have done injury to our troops and to their families.

My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.

The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops, as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches at which they have not told the American people the truth.

--

If anyone thinks that a veteran, someone like me, who's been fighting my entire career to provide for veterans, to fight for their benefits, to help honor what their service is, if anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy.

It's just wrong. This is a classic GOP textbook Republican campaign tactic.

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. Thank you SOOOOO much..........

I cant believe our own people NOT understanding this point.:banghead:

[Bluerthanblue]

8. Whether he intended to or not, he spoke the ugly truth about

the majority of our volunteer military-
It is one of the last refuges, for those who can't afford higher education any other way-
So, if there is an apology due- it is due from those who 'make the pie higher' for those who already have too much pie to begin with.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. The Rs also misinterpreted Kerry on "I voted against it, before I voted

for Iraq funding"

A defense consisting only of "That's not what I said" IMO is going to be just as effective for Kerry this time as it was last time.

IMO Kerry needs not only to say, "That's not what I said", but to use this opportunity to point out the unequal sacrifice Bush and company are demanding of Americans.

[WI_DEM]

4. He meant it as a joke about Bush not to belittle the troops

[ProgressiveEconomist]

18. I agree--the context is clear. But who's going to expend the effort

to understand the context, when there is a 15-second video that seems self-contained and serves Karl Rove's purposes better than a scripted, staged advertisement?

Just as he did when he said, "I voted against it before I voted for it" (Iraq funding not demanding any extra tax effort from the ultra-wealthy), John Kerry has given Republicans the gift of a PERFECT negative soundbyte for repetition ad infinitum.

The only good thing about this time is that it may have happened too late for the sound-byte to be incorporated into saturation ads, the way the last "misinterpretation" was.

[LiberalEsto]

5. They go after the college kids too, though

My two girls are in college. Today one of them received in the mail a big colorful Army brochure containing a recruiting DVD.

If anyone thinks I'm going to let my kids throw away those years of college education to go get themselves killed in Iraq for Georgie-boy the Draft Dodger, they had better think again!

And if they joined and got killed, would the Army step in to pay $45,000 in college loans for each of them? Ha!

[Red Right and BLUE]

6. It's about BUSH, not TROOPS nt

[casus belli]

7. Feeding Into This in this manner, isn't helpful

If we're going to clarify what Kerry meant with his statements, and defend the accuracy of his statements against Bush, we can't play both sides. Spinning a losing argument probably has alot to do with why Republicans are so unpopular at the moment. We don't need to emulate their tactics by justifying something that was essentially never said.

The bottom line here is if John Kerry was insulting troops, then he was also insulting himself. And it is a point which cons are conveniently overlooking in order to gain traction on what should be a non-issue.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. How is it insulting troops to point out that those who have not

been educated effectively enough to continue on to college are bearing the brunt of unnecessary sacrifice in Iraq?

More than 100 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq this month. I'd like to see some Democratic member of Congress call for a Congressional Research Service study to find out what high schools they graduated from, and what percentage of the freshman class at each of those high schools graduates and goes on to college.

Since Reagan, proportions of state budgets spent on incarceration have soared above proportions of budgets spent on education, and salaries of prison guards have leapfrogged ahead of teacher salaries. IMO, the US needs to spend a lot more on education and a lot less on violence and imprisonment.

Kerry is playing into Republican hands just as he did the last time his words were misinterpreted. How would you propose to get Democrats out of this Kerry-induced mess?

[casus belli]

12. By going on offensive

We shouldn't be responding or defending anything. If they want to make this an issue, we should bombard the press with examples of Bush disrespecting the troops by not funding the War properly, not allowing oversight of Halliburton misappropriations, forcing him to respond to why he has yet to attend a SINGLE funeral for a fallen soldier.

Defense is a losing tactic. Our moment is in the offense, and we should keep applying it.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

15. I agree, "defense is a losing tactic". Kerry needs to craft a message

that takes maximum advantage of the spotlight Bush and company are giving him. IMO Kerry could SINK chances of Democratic takeovers in Congress if he apologized, or if he just stuck to parsing words about how he was attacking the intelligence of the POTUS.

Either strategy could be political suicide at this point. Kerry needs to go on offense on real issues.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. K&R

[Sleepless In NY]

13. Kerry was college educated, enlisted & volunteered

for combat in vietnam. His comments were directed at bush, not the soldiers. To now agree with what the republicans r trying to sell to the public, that kerry "said" all soldiers are uneducated, is not only not true, it would be an insult. We don't want that. Kerry has got to get on every tv show he can and clarify his remarks.

[warrens]

14. That isn't what he said

And you know it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. Kerry was saying Bush was uneducated and got stuck in Iraq

He wasn't talking about why some kids enlist, from what I understand. He was saying that Bush wasn't smart and didn't study and got himself stuck in Iraq.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

17. I agree with your interpretation. But once again Kerry is in a box

of his own making.

Bush talking-points are manipulating Kerry's poor choice of words into a supposed attack on the intelligence of the troops.

Politically, is it any better for Kerry to waste a national spotlight defending his words and context as an attack on the intelligence of the POTUS?

IMO, Kerry needs to use this spotlight to somehow discuss relevant issues, such as unequal sacrifice stemming from Dubya's blood-for-oil foreign policy.

[blm]

20. BOTH scenarios are TRUE, so it doesn't matter. And Kerry USED the opprotunity

to attack Bush substantively on Iraq - and McCain, too.

[DaveJ]

19. I think he intentionally deviated from the original speech

And either version of the statement is true.