Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Jeff Jacoby: Wrong Again

Now, I know that if I had to post every time Jeff Jacoby was wrong about something, I'd probably end up spending more time in front of the computer. Still, I feel like I have to respond to his latest post on the Boston Globe's Thinking Politics -- their 'opinion blog' (whatever that means). Here's what Jacoby has to say:

Shouldn't John Kerry's new policy of "endorsing only candidates in contested primaries who are veterans," as the Globe's Rick Klein reported last week, be getting a bit more scrutiny? After all, a veterans-only rule would tend to rule out women, gays, and the handicapped.
The funniest part of this is that Kerry had, in fact, endorsed Tammy Duckworth for Congress in Illinois in her March primary (she won by 200 or so votes in a low-turnout election). Duckworth is not only a veteran, but also a woman, and she lost her legs in a helicopter explosion in Iraq. Maybe in Jacoby's world, there are no female veterans, and none are ever wounded in the course of their duty, but I've suspected for some time now that Jacoby does not live in the same reality that the rest of us inhabit.

You would think that someone who talks about how Kerry's primary endorsements should be getting 'more scrutiny' would bother to actually check who Kerry endorsed before complaining about how sexist and ableist the Senator might be.