Tuning into Road to the White House on C-SPAN this evening, I had the unpleasant experience of watching Representative Duncan Hunter campaigning for the presidency in New Hampshire. I quickly learned that like President Bush, Hunter's utterances range from typical GOP cheerleading of the war to inappropriate humor about that horrible conflict.
Reminiscent of the kind of jokes the current commander-in-chief likes to tell, Duncan Hunter apparently believes the situation in Iraq is fodder for humorous quips. Read on and be disgusted...
During his visit to the Cheshire County Republican Women's Club on March 24, 2007 (and, later that same day, at a meeting of the Fitzwilliam Republican Party), Duncan Hunter repeatedly implied that the situation in Iraq is very good and improving. He said, in fact, that "our people are doing well" and that Iraqi troops are "starting to be able to handle their own problems and their own security." Hunter said that he recently visited Fallujah and Ramadi, and found that the Sunnis there are now working with the Shia army to drive al Qaeda from those cities. Gee, sounds wonderful, doesn't it? According to Hunter, "We are winning in Iraq...if we continue to stand up the Iraqi troops." Huh? In other words, his assertion that "we are winning" is true in March 2007, but if, in the future, we fail to continue standing up the Iraqi troops, it somehow changes the past and we won't have been winning in March 2007.
Okay, so Duncan Hunter is a weasel-word apologist for the Bush Administration's disastrous occupation of Iraq, but that hardly sets him apart from the rest of the Republican field. It was a joke he told, though, that I found both offensive and revealing.
Hunter mentioned that his son had recently returned from serving in Iraq and is currently helping out with his dad's presidential campaign. In a style that suggests a sincere appreciation for George W. Bush's sense of humor, Hunter quipped that his son is now learning about the rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics: "He's only been on the campaign trail for a week, but he's seen enough that he's about ready to return to Fallujah." Hilarious! Everybody laughed, if a little uncomfortably. I was reminded of Bush's joke (and lie): "I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war" or his infamous, "those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," gag.
I think it's obvious how offensive and inappropriate Hunter's joke was, but I also think it's interesting that in the context of everything he had to say that day about the occupation of Iraq, it didn't make any sense. It's supposed to funny, of course, because Hunter is trying to say that modern politics is so awful that it's even worse than a horrible civil war. But Hunter spent the day trying to convince New Hampshire Republicans that everything is going quite well now in Iraq. It makes me wonder: does anyone in the Republican Party really believe all this crap about how the surge is working and things are improving in Iraq? Or do they just not care as much about the suffering in Iraq as they do about being good Republicans and supporting their President?
As Duncan Hunter was wrapping things up that day, he ended up exchanging pleasantries with a woman who had hosted Ronald Reagan during a 1976 campaign visit to New Hampshire. "I'm hoping to capture some of that Reagan magic," Hunter declared. The woman nodded, then thought for a moment, and replied, "Although they didn't go for him. They went for Ford instead."
I think Duncan Hunter, like John McCain and any other candidate who supports the war, is likely to find that the joke is really on him.