Whatever he meant by them, John Kerry’s remarks have struck a nerve. But why? Well, for a lot of reasons. Of course we think of anti-war activist John Kerry’s long-standing tensions with his fellow Vietnam Vets. Then there’s the insulting stereotype of the dumb soldier. But to understand the tensions thrown up by Kerry’s remarks, we also need to have a look at the reverse of the medal: not the “soldiers are dumb” theme, but the notion that smart people don’t become soldiers and don’t support wars. No matter who he meant the dumb folks were, the idea that smart college kids become dovish Dems is a powerful sub-text in Kerry’s remarks.

If it was a joke, it was a pretty bad one, even for him. First, Bush got better grades than Kerry at Yale. More relevant, if launching the Iraq war is a sign of stupidity and a failure to do oneÂ’s homework, Kerry should avoid calling attention to the fact that he voted to approve it and defended that vote throughout his 2004 presidential campaign.

But whether or not it was a joke, it certainly sounded like Kerry was talking about the troops, because thatÂ’s the way Kerry talks about everything. KerryÂ’s a bit like one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials, only heÂ’s a throwback to a slightly more recent era: Vietnam.

All of his ideas were formed from his experience as an anti-Vietnam crusader. He may have run as a born-again war hero in 2004, but his political career was founded on his activism against a war he repeatedly labeled a crime.

That’s why few gave Kerry the benefit of the doubt. The idea that the military is the last refuge for the lumpen-proletariat is a Vietnam-era chestnut that continues to pop up in liberal talking points. It wasn’t very accurate during Vietnam, and it’s even less so now. A timely study of the demographics of enlistees in our all-volunteer military found that the share of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods has declined steadily since 1999 and throughout the war. Moreover, “U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers.”

Kerry thinks it’s unfair for Republicans to seize on his comments, and to an extent he’s right. He obviously didn’t intend to insult America’s servicemen and women. But Kerry fails to understand that he — like so many fossils of his generation in the Democratic party — sounds like he’s frozen in the past. The Democratic position on Iraq is that it’s Vietnam all over again, and the only time Kerry ever seems sure of himself is when he’s reprising his anti-Vietnam schtick.

Sure, Republicans are seizing on his comments with the same opportunistic zeal Democrats displayed when they recently tried to paint the GOP as soft on sexual predation on congressional pages. But Kerry — like much of his party — seems determined to lend plausibility to such criticisms.