Kerry's big boner

Watch it folks, I'm not talking Al Gore airbrush Rolling Stone cover city---I'm talking gaffe city.

I missed it at first, but then it sank in from my notes:

Kerry mentioned our attacking Iraq after 9/11 would have been like FDR attacking Mexico after Pearl Harbor.

Now here's a question: what exactly did Nazi Germany have to do with Pearl Harbor?

Absofreakinglutely nothing.

If you go and read FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech, there is not one single reference to Nazi Germany or a role for America in the war in Europe. Not one.

Zippo.

Yet, within months, FDR decided to pursue a "Europe First" strategy which involved our putting the core of the United States Army into North Africa and then into Europe, on the other side of the planet from the perpetrators of the Pearl Harbor attack in Japan.

Why did he do this? Partly in response to the belief that Nazi Germany was developing a nuclear weapon.

Can you imagine what would have happened to Tom Dewey if he had tried to rip into FDR in the campaign of 1944 on this issue? He would have been crucified, and rightly so.

And of course, fifty nine years later we still have two US Army heavy divisions stationed in Germany.

The other gaffe for Kerry was consistenly referring to Osama bin Laden as a "criminal" therefore implying that the proper context of the war on terrorism is one of law enforcement, not military action.

The third was the inconsistency on North Korea: why do we need to jettison our allies (Japan and South Korea) as well as China so that we can give Krazy Kim what he wants, billateral talks that he can then get up and walk away from? Is it that France has no interests at stake there, hmmmmm? (Use your best Judge Smales voice when pronouncing that "hmmmm")

UPDATE: Bill as the Fonz? I'm thinking Potsie, at best....

UPDATE DEUX: Controversy is roiling in the Tasty Bits Comments section over my analysis of why we entered into WW2 against Nazi Germany and the connection (or lack thereof) to Pearl Harbor.

First of all, the erudite and classically trained rhetoritician "BUSHIT" writes in "LEARN YUR HERSTORY BEFORE YOU VOMIT FOR THE CHIMPEROR!" Well, I punched it up a bit, but you get the drift. Another writer quite soberly asks if that in fact came letter.

I have a long answer to these questions up above, in the post "9/11 and the Invasion of Iraq, I."