NEW YORK (AP) - We'll never really know if Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake." But we'd certainly know if she made that infamous (and perhaps fictional) political gaffe today: The video would have thousands of YouTube hits within an hour. Which is why, analysts say, Sen. John Kerry's much-quoted remarks on education and Iraq, which he apologized for Wednesday, show that now more than ever, danger lurks when a politician strays off script. And it shows that successful politicians (and their staffs) must hone a few crucial skills: listening to yourself speak, and correcting a mistake the minute it happens.
Because if you wait any longer, "the toothpaste is out of the tube, and you can't push it back in," says Douglas Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College in New York. "You can't have a do- over."
That was made clear when Howard Dean, to use one of many examples, let loose that hard-to-forget scream in Iowa in 2004. Whatever he said later, it was impossible to erase—or avoid—the image. (And it's still on YouTube.)
In Kerry's case, his remarks Monday could have broader implications because they threatened Democrats' momentum as they seek to gain control of Congress in next week's election. Which is why Kerry scratched some campaign appearances Wednesday for Democratic candidates, and one asked him not to come. (In his remarks, Kerry told a group of California students that individuals who don't study hard and do their homework would likely "get stuck in Iraq." He says he meant to say "get US stuck in Iraq"—a botched joke intended to criticize President Bush, not troops.)
The way opponents have seized on the remarks by Kerry—a Yale graduate and decorated Vietnam veteran—is a sign, says political analyst Steven Cohen, of just how contentious, polarized and "poisonous" American politics has become. Not that there hasn't been political nastiness before—there were fistfights on the floor of Congress in the 19th century, Cohen says. But now, it's all magnified by electronic media and the Web.
"What's lost in all this is any genuine discussion of the issue," says Cohen, professor of public policy at Columbia University. "Have we made mistakes in Iraq? Where should we go now? The questions have instead become, 'Is John Kerry disrespectful to troops?' and 'Is George Bush stupid?'"
One thing the episode does show, says a prominent analyst of political communication, is that more than ever, politicians need to listen to themselves while speaking, and catch remarks that could be misconstrued. Call it self-editing, or self-monitoring—Kerry was not doing that on Monday, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It happens to people who give lots of speeches—you get tired, and you start to abbreviate," says Jamieson. "It wouldn't be like Kerry to criticize the troops—it's perfectly plausible that he was trying to joke about Bush."
But, she says, he didn't hear precisely what he was saying, and it's happened to him several times, including his 2004 remark that he'd voted for war funds before he voted against them. Also in 2004, Republicans seized on his comment in a New York Times magazine article that "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance"—charging that he was implying terrorists were a mere nuisance.
"I'm hard pressed to find a politician since Barry Goldwater who's had his words used against him so many times by the opposition," Jamieson said.
Of course, President Bush has gotten into his share of trouble when he's gone "extemporaneous." To cite just one example, he was ridiculed during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for saying "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" to Michael Brown, who soon lost his job as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency amid bitter criticism of his performance.
Going well beyond Bush and Kerry, recent political history is filled with "innumerable examples of politicians stepping all over their tongues and shoving not only their feet but entire limbs into their mouths," says Muzzio, the Baruch College analyst. Just one memorable example: former New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato's use of the Yiddish word "putzhead" to describe Democratic opponent Chuck Schumer in 1998. (D'Amato went on to lose his seat.)
But is there a positive side—not for candidates, but for the country—to these famous gaffes? One unfortunate result of the cutthroat state of political discourse, some say, is that it could further stifle any spontaneity—something already so lacking in this world of carefully constructed spin, scripted talk-show appearances and, well, self-editing politicians.
If politicians are going to become even more scripted, says Jamieson, "that's a sad commentary on our democracy."
