Believe me, we get it.
John Kennedy is a smart man who likes to say stupid things. He compares congressional legislation to dog urine, calls nominees for high office names — “whack job,” for example, or in the case of one Soviet-born law professor, “comrade” — and says of politicians with whom he disagrees that “it must suck to be that dumb.”
Clearly Kennedy is just fine with sacrificing his senatorial dignity at the altar of owning the libs. Never mind that he is not in fact the yokel he plays on TV but a highly credentialed lawyer, or that he once ran for U.S. Senate as a John Kerry supporter.
Obviously, he revels in misplaced condescension, like when he recently insulted a prominent public health researcher who was discussing conditions that breed gun violence, after she’d irked Kennedy by pointing out that Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri — all Republican states with lax gun laws — have higher firearm death rates than largely Democratic Chicago.
“No disrespect, doc, but that sounds a lot like word salad to me,” he told Megan Ranney, the dean of Yale’s School of Public Health, in a Senate hearing. (When Kennedy starts out by saying he means no disrespect, you know he’s about to show appalling disrespect).
So why bring all this up again, other than to point out the ongoing embarrassment he brings to our state?
Because it’s getting worse. Because recently Kennedy crossed yet another line, beyond even the serial demeaning of his political opponents.
Because he, a United States senator, called the president of the United States a “weenie” of a world leader.
This wasn’t just a routine attack on Joe Biden, of the sort we’ve come to expect from our coarser politicians. It was a statement that could well undermine the standing of our president and our country on the international stage, at a time of tremendous peril and need for strong, unified American leadership.
Kennedy made the comment on Fox News — of course — in October, amid early confusion over what had caused an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. Rather than just voice support for Israel’s right to try to destroy Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, he decided to pivot and attempt to put the horrific situation at Biden’s feet.
Claiming to explain how we got here, Kennedy said, “I think we have to be honest with ourselves, America has a president who is not a defense hawk. America has a president whose administration is frankly more interested in discussing whether a man can breast feed than it is in talking about national security.”
He then criticized Biden’s actions in other places — Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iran but not Israel — and argued that “our enemies have concluded that America has a president who’s a bit of a weenie on national defense.”
The clip later showed up in a Kennedy fundraising plea, under the subject line: “The world sees Biden as a weenie.”
Makes you wonder what ever happened to the historical principle that routine political attacks stop at the border, something Kennedy surely learned about at Vanderbilt while studying political science. Or whether the subject of America’s role in the world ever came up in conversation while he was earning a degree at Oxford (the one in England, not Mississippi).
Or even why he decided to make this oh-so-important point while discussing Israel, which Biden has steadfastly supported. His comments came before the president played a significant role in negotiating the temporary ceasefire and hostage releases, but you’ve got to wonder whether he would take them back even now.
It would sure be nice if Kennedy decided to follow the lead of his fellow Louisiana Republican, new House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is certainly no liberal but who does promote the idea that there should be some civility in public discourse. Alas, the senator seems to have too much fun playing his chosen role.
But would it be too much to ask that he at least try not to cause any international incidents?