That’s okay, Doug, I’ll give it a shot.

Gary, the essential distinction between this and, say, criticizing Manuel Noriega is this: we are currently engaged in active hostilities with Allawi’s government as allies, and against the forces of fascist reaction that are currently using terrorism to kill and intimidate the citizens of Iraq, and to kill US soldiers and marines.

By doing so, Kerry supports the enemy’s morale by suggesting they can win if they just hold on until the election, and likely indirectly supports the enemy’s logistics by making it more likely that other states will think they can win, and that logistic support won’t be wasted.

Because this is the likely outcome, Kerry’s actions are supporting fascism and terrorism against a friendly government attempting to become a fully democratic modern state and also supporting the enemy forces that are, today, killing and injuring American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

This is distinguished from most of the others you mention in that while they were allies, we were not engaged in active hostilities in alliance with them. (DeGaulle, in particular, was an annoyance, not a significant military commander or effective head of state during WWII.) Criticism then, such as calling them American “puppets”, might well have been ill-advised, but they would not have put US personnel at risk.

This is why his speeches are despicable.

You might then wonder why similar actions and speeches against Nguyen weren’t equally despicable?

And the answer, of course, is that they were.