"It's Not Their Fault"

Ed Driscoll notes that John Kerry has declared an end to the era of personal responsibility. James Taranto also opines.

Excerpt below.

So, if a candidate gaffes in the woods but nobody hears it...

Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:51 p.m. EDT

'It's Not Their Fault'
Here's a revealing passage from a Washington Times report on a John Kerry campaign appearance in Columbus, Ohio:

Talking about education yesterday, Mr. Kerry also told the largely black crowd at the day care center that there are more blacks in prison than in college.

"That's unacceptable," he said. "But it's not their fault."

Rather than the inmates, the former Boston prosecutor blamed poverty, poor schools, a dearth of after-school programs and "all of us as adults not doing what we need to do."

What do adults "need to do" to prevent youngsters from turning to crime? Surely, above all, instill in them a sense of personal responsibility. Kerry sends precisely the opposite message when he says of criminals--and, it would seem, only of those criminals who happen to be black--that "it's not their fault." There's a tinge of racism, what President Bush aptly terms "the soft bigotry of low expectations," in Kerry's assumption that young blacks can't be expected to do any better than end up in prison.

Comments

[Forbes]

Who supplied Kerry with his talking points? While I haven't checked the numbers, surely someone on his staff did. What glorious point is made by telling a subset of our population that more of you are in prison and in college? Embarassment? Shoot the messenger hostility? I mean, this is not a David standing up to Goliath moment, as the Moynihan definition of a gaffe is suggestive. Blacks are in prison because they commit crimes on other blacks. This is not honesty speaking the untold truth.

Isn't this a reflection of how out of touch Kerry is with America. He was telling them that it was unacceptable to him, because it was news to him. I seriously doubt he was bringing anything new to the attention of his audience. Surely Blacks in America are up to speed on the relative influence of prisons, and colleges, in their lives. It's the absolute height of arrogance to think otherwise, and Kerry's comment speaks loudly on that point.

And then there's his "root cause" approach to the issue. Wasn't that the approach LBJ and the Dems used to foment support for the "Great Society" programs in the '60s? Talk about old, tired, and mistaken policy ideas. Kerry seems to be proposing the Democratic foreign policy of the '90s (sending cops out to make arrests) with their domestic policy of the '60s (redistributionist welfare of the European model).

If he runs true to this approach, it could be Bush in a landslide.

[TM]

If he runs true to this approach, it could be Bush in a landslide.

Fingers crossed - as you say, Kerry is pretty unreconstructed here.

[Soul]

I just thought there was a lot of irony in having this a few posts before the "The President's Letter" post. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I guess it's okay if you give your guy a pass.