Kerry's Botched Joke

Great Debates
362

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Says he intended. Based on his words and his actions I don’t believe him.
[/QUOTE]
Cite? What words, taken in context and what actions demonstrate to you that he couldn’t have been trying (poorly) to continue to Bush-bash, exactly? Actions like earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three Purple Hearts? Actions like campaigning strenuously for Iraq veterans? Actions like earning a “B” from an Iraqi Vets group, unlike McCain’s “D”?

[QUOTE=magellan01]
He was an officer with a college degree from Harvard. He was hardly one of those to whom he was alluding.
[/QUOTE]
You might want to try to get your facts straight. Kerry’s degree was from Yale, for one thing. Furthermore, even given the extraordinarily disingenuous assertion that Kerry was insulting “the troops” (which, as has been already pointed out, no one has any ingenuous rationale for concluding, since he never mentioned “the troops” or “soldiers”, or “grunts”), he certainly made no distinction between enlisted and officers! So, yes, he would have been insulting himself.

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Stuck? It doesn’t seem so. He managed to get out pretty quickly.
[/QUOTE]
I see! So serving two voluntary terms of service in Vietnam is “getting out pretty quickly”. Got it.

[QUOTE=magellan01]
How about the democrats who seem to agree with them?
[/QUOTE]
You really should have read the post to which I directed you earlier. Then you would have read this comment of mine: “The Republican leaders don’t believe that for a second, but were deliriously happy to pretend otherwise (as were craven political cowards like Hillary Clinton, who’ll get my vote the day the craven political coward John McCain does).”

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Since you know what people believe, even when it runs counter to their stated opinions, I would think the whole debate board thing would be quite a waste of your amazing power and skills, no?
[/QUOTE]
Ah, personal abuse. How nice. But let me get back to the first part of your response, prior to the calumny: Please give us a cite for Kerry’s opinion that supports your implication that Kerry thinks the troops are stupid.

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Oh my, the great ambush of the blind pitting and "oh look, I have a cite that proves my point (well, actually just an author whose opinion agrees with mine) so the argument is over!!! disagrees with me! I am crushed and shant sleep a wink tonight.
[/QUOTE]
Nothing like a bit of personal defamation to help win a debate, is there? Maybe the Republicans ought to look into it.

[QUOTE=magellan01]
By the way, still waiting for that apology.
[/QUOTE]
Here, magellan01 is complaining that I incautiously relied on what I genuinely took to be a mod’s admonishment against telling someone they’ve been pitted in a non-pit thread when starting a Pit thread about one of his comments wherein he complained that he would never believe any citation to any source that agreed with my point of view. Need I add anything else?

It’s great that you’re still waiting, magellan. Just hold your breath and I’ll get to that right away…

363

Sorry for the terrible coding errors. I asked for a mod to correct them, but maybe it’s better not to wait. Try this, instead:
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Says he intended. Based on his words and his actions I don’t believe him.
[/QUOTE]
Cite? What words, taken in context and what actions demonstrate to you that he couldn’t have been trying (poorly) to continue to Bush-bash, exactly? Actions like earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three Purple Hearts? Actions like campaigning strenuously for Iraq veterans? Actions like earning a “B” from an Iraqi Vets group, unlike McCain’s “D”?

[QUOTE=magellan01]
He was an officer with a college degree from Harvard. He was hardly one of those to whom he was alluding.
[/QUOTE]
You might want to try to get your facts straight. Kerry’s degree was from Yale, for one thing. Furthermore, even given the extraordinarily disingenuous assertion that Kerry was insulting “the troops” (which, as has been already pointed out, no one has any ingenuous rationale for concluding, since he never mentioned “the troops” or “soldiers”, or “grunts”), he certainly made no distinction between enlisted and officers! So, yes, he would have been insulting himself.

I see! So serving two voluntary terms of service in Vietnam is “getting out pretty quickly”. Got it.

You really should have read the post to which I directed you earlier. Then you would have read this comment of mine: “The Republican leaders don’t believe that for a second, but were deliriously happy to pretend otherwise (as were craven political cowards like Hillary Clinton, who’ll get my vote the day the craven political coward John McCain does).”

Ah, personal abuse. How nice. But let me get back to the first part of your response, prior to the calumny: Please give us a cite for Kerry’s opinion that supports your implication that Kerry thinks the troops are stupid.

Nothing like a bit of personal defamation to help win a debate, is there? Maybe the Republicans ought to look into it.

Here, magellan01 is complaining that I incautiously relied on what I genuinely took to be a mod’s admonishment against telling someone they’ve been pitted in a non-pit thread when starting a Pit thread about one of his comments wherein he complained that he would never believe any citation to any source that agreed with my point of view. Need I add anything else?

It’s great that you’re still waiting, magellan. Just hold your breath and I’ll get to that right away…

364

What is fairly impressive about this whole thing is that even in its death throes, this “political” movement of the past decade that went under the name “Republican” can still in short order gin up a fake debate so stinky that even NPR is still talking about it today.

I mean, think about it. Pretty much the whole success of the modern Republican party is based on the practice of taking something that someone said and giving it a malignant interpretation. Regardless of what the actual person believes, and has done for their whole life, and actually says when asked, one statement made on one occasion with a remotely ambiguous interpretation defines them and shapes the debate.

In this way can a group of people who avoided their own military service, who chose to start a war that is devolving into chaos, creating more vulnerability for America, and taking the lives of actual service men and women, stand back and assert that one comment from a decorated veteran means he has disdain for the troops.

I ask nothing from Republicans who don’t support this type of “leadership” because they’ve proven their desire to go along with it in the past. I just suggest to you that, this being all you have in terms of party principles, don’t scratch your heads and wonder who to blame when people decide they’ve had enough and would like some actual leadership with integrity and honor.

365

[QUOTE=ambushed]
You see, honey?
[/QUOTE]

These sorts of addresses and comments are not helping this rather silly thread stay on track. Neither condescension nor personal attacks are necessary to make your points and if you have to get personal, take it to the Pit.

[ /Moderating ]

366

Here’s some more insight into what Kerry may have been thinking.

367

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
What is fairly impressive about this whole thing is that even in its death throes, this “political” movement of the past decade that went under the name “Republican” can still in short order gin up a fake debate so stinky that even NPR is still talking about it today.

[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately they don’t have the skills to fabricate documents nor is CBS on their side… otherwise they could really do some damage.

They’re good enough to get such Dem stalwarts as Hillary to fall into the trap though.

368

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I’m suggesting that the ones holding the sign are either under-informed about the incident or that their umbrage is a pretense.

[/QUOTE]
I think it was just a joke. I just had an email from my son and, according to him, everybody on his ship knows that it was a botched joke. That he meant to say one thing (the slam on Bush), but fouled up his delivery and, accidentally, seemed to say something quite different. The banner, by Nick’s definition (and mine), is the troops there ribbing Kerry about his screwup. I thought it was funny as hell.

369

Telling jokes is damned hard work. Proffessional comedians spend long hours, days, weeks and years perfecting their technique. I learned long ago that if you don’t have the knack, don’t try to tell jokes when giving a talk.

Kerry’s remarks were easy to misinterpret and as soon as the hubbub started his best move would have been to apologise.

Something like, “Y’know I tried to tell a joke about the president and I messed it up. I’m sorry it came out the way it did and I want to apologize for what sounded like an insult to those in the military in Iraq.” And despite all contrary interpretations, that was the way it sounded to me, and I’m sympathetic to his general theme.

370

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Sure would! Which, of course, is one good reason not to do it. You have, I’m sure, a list of Democratic politicians who have done so, and a specific list of the statements that prove it? You think Ms. Duckworth, war vet and amputee, running for Congress as a Democrat…is she on your list of “a party of haters”? Got cites, bring cites.
[/QUOTE]

One problem with your analysis, elucidator. I wasn’t talking about Democrat politicians. Of course most of them are smart enought not to bash the troops openly, with the exception of Kerry! :wink:

However, Democrats at lunch counters, cubicles and message boards are another story. As to a cite, please simply read Diogenes posts in this very thread. I’d characterize his attitude as disparaging of the military, something not at all uncommon with those in the far left, IMO.

I just love it when somebody gets all huffy about something I said and demands a cite. A cite that’s easily provided within the very thread that we’re both posting in.

371

[QUOTE=elucidator]
How many of us heard the speech, as such? Only those actually there in Pasadena. Point being, all of us who heard about this heard about it in a “reaction”, as in “This just in, Kerry slanders Our Heroes!”. In other words, the reaction was biased to begin with. Without the wholesale investment of innuendoe and misinterpretation, this speech is perfectly innocuous. If the joke had been delivered as written, no one would have noticed. Kerry wasn’t there to say anything he hadn’t already said, this was no press conference, it was a second-tier campaign stop, no big deal. If we are to believe some of the more cognitively constipated tighty righties, Kerry deliberately chose to insult the troops in this out of the way location, chosen to radically alter his public persona…in Pasadena. In a “stump speech”, the most “canned” form of public address.

Even those of us who are not FoxGnaws* addicts and heard about this on the liberal tedia heard it as a reaction: “People are saying that this speech insults the military, and here it is…” Which is to say that virtually everyone who heard the words in question already had a “slant” before a word was heard. Makes statements like “When I heard the speech, my first reaction was…” kind of silly, regardless of what that reaction might have been. I don’t remember, but have little doubt my first reaction was “No way, Pedro”.

Being human, we don’t remember that our first reaction was primed. We think we heard the clip without bias, that the implication of disrespect and slander was in the words themselves, but in fact, we carry the innuendo with us before we hear what its about. We’d already been told what to think. Some of us, it appears, were willing…nay, eager!..to comply.

*“I am the slime from your video…”, Frank Zappa, Freak Out!
[/QUOTE]

elucidator, you are simply wrong, here. Factually incorrect. Damn it! I want a retraction immediately!

I’m the Slime is from Over-nite Sensation, not Freak Out. Of course, live versions of it appeared on You Can’t do That on Stage Anymore Vol I and In New York as well as a remastered version after Zappa’s death in Strictly Commercial. But, you probably already knew that.

372

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Eh. You have a cite, I have a cite. If Kerry is putting out two different stories about what he was supposed to have said, then maybe both are bogus.
[/QUOTE]

Kerry is putting out only one story. Keep up.

373

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Kerry is putting out only one story. Keep up.
[/QUOTE]

No. It appears now there are 3 stories. What I cite, what you cited and this latest:

Funny how he “forgot” to include every item in that quote that is an unequivical reference to Bush (what I underlined).

Now, I don’t think he was referring to the troops, I think he was refering to Bush, but I think they made up that quote after the fact. It’s just too convenient.

374

It’s backed up by the written text of the speech…and it’s only one story.

375

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Keep up.
[/QUOTE]
Alternatively, one might invest a smidgeon of energy into discovering why there are two possible quotations. I know it is not any one person’s “responsibility” to do this, but if you folks are going to make me wade through page after page of distorted history, partisan sniping, tu quoque responses, truly absurd reconstructions of events, and unwarranted personal remarks, it would be nice to see fewer insulting challenges and more actual examination of each other’s claims.

  • ::: sigh ::: *
376

[QUOTE=What the … !!!]
Yesterday Kerry said the following to a group of college students… “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Amid criticisms from McCain and others he now claims it was a botched joke and that he was referring to Bush getting us stuck in Iraq.

That argument would suggest that Kerry would have gotten us even stucker.

So do you believe him or is he just trying to crawl out of a hole?
[/QUOTE]

It was supposed to be If you don’t you get US stuck in Iraq.
was about the Shrub.

377

Maybe he was saying he wanted to have gay sex with Dick Cheney? After all,there are just as many references to gay sex with Dick Cheney as their are references to our troops. Which is to say, zero, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

And Debaser…an accusation that Dems denigrate the troops cannot be backed up with another accusation. You can lean two strawmen together, but that doesn’t mean either can stand by itself.

I am, however, heartened to know that you have a taste for classical music.

378

I suppose there’s there’s nothing to be gained at all from this mind-reading exercise (besides another example of American idiocy, at least in terms of what we choose to fixate on and call “important”). But I must confess I find it fascinating that Maj. Leader Boner’s comments about Rumsfeld vs. “Generals”, in the context of a discussion about fault for failure in Iraq, and which strike me as about as ambiguous as Kerry’s gaffe (and probably, for that matter, equally inoccuous), are now causing a bit of a stir. I’m sure we’ll see lots of righteous indignation over the utter foolishness of anyone who could have possibly seen even the slightest hint that Boehner was attempting to shift blame from Rumsfeld to “the troops” for Iraq’s long slide into chaos.

Not to hijack with a tu coque…more of “a pox on both [our] houses”. Damn us all to Hell, that sort of thing.

379

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Alternatively, one might invest a smidgeon of energy into discovering why there are two possible quotations. I know it is not any one person’s “responsibility” to do this, but if you folks are going to make me wade through page after page of distorted history, partisan sniping, tu quoque responses, truly absurd reconstructions of events, and unwarranted personal remarks, it would be nice to see fewer insulting challenges and more actual examination of each other’s claims.

  • ::: sigh ::: *
    [/QUOTE]

I agree. Either Kerry’s people are scrambling in an uncoordinated manner, or the press is botching the storry. But if the latest version I quoted is correct, I call BS on that being the “real text”, per my post above. Too coincidental that he missed 4 key items that tie it to Bush. And again, don’t let that statement lead to an implication that we wasn’t talking about Bush-- I do think he was.

380

[QUOTE=ambushed]
Cite? What words, taken in context and what actions demonstrate to you that he couldn’t have been trying (poorly) to continue to Bush-bash, exactly?

Never said that it he couldn’t have been trying to continue to bash Bush, that it was impossible. Since I do not have the ability to get inside his head I leave open that possibility. I just don’t think that to be the case. Please try to keep my claims straight and not put words in my mouth.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
You might want to try to get your facts straight. Kerry’s degree was from Yale, for one thing.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, they both attended Yale undergrad, as did GWB’s dad. Bush got his MBA from Harvard. My error. But the point stands. He was an officer with an Ivy League degree, hardly the sort he was alluding to. Also, with your interpretation, the person he was alluding to in offering an example of the pitfalls of slacking off had a degree from Yale and Harvard. Thanks for bringing to light another reason why the bashing Bush defense sems amazingly strained to me.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
I see! So serving two voluntary terms of service in Vietnam is “getting out pretty quickly”. Got it.
[/QUOTE]

From Wiki: He arrived in Vietnam on November 17, 1968. He left the field and was heading back to The States on March 25, 1969. That’s about 130 days. If you recall, he also sought deferments before going in. When he didn’t get them he enlisted, wisely, to be able to choose the branch of service he would enter.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
You really should have read the post to which I directed you earlier. Then you would have read this comment of mine: “The Republican leaders don’t believe that for a second, but were deliriously happy to pretend otherwise (as were craven political cowards like Hillary Clinton, who’ll get my vote the day the craven political coward John McCain does).”
[/QUOTE]

I read it, so what? Your attempt to paint this as solely a problem that Reps have with what he said has been shown to be incorrect. You can disparage those Dems if you wish, but thery’re still Dems, which refutes your basic assertion. Especially since they twisted his arm to get him to apologize.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
But let me get back to the first part of your response, prior to the calumny: Please give us a cite for Kerry’s opinion that supports your implication that Kerry thinks the troops are stupid.
[/QUOTE]

The cite is what he said. If he misspoke he should have apologized. Simple. And I don’t know what he “thinks”. Again, I don’t have those powers. I go by his words and what I see as the most logical interpretation of them. I suggest you review the few posts I have in this thread.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
Nothing like a bit of personal defamation to help win a debate, is there? Maybe the Republicans ought to look into it.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe if you would have apologized, as you should have, your low actions wouldn’t be following you around. What is it about you guys and not apologizing? Sheesh.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
Here, magellan01 is complaining that I incautiously relied on what I genuinely took to be a mod’s admonishment against telling someone they’ve been pitted in a non-pit thread when starting a Pit thread about one of his comments wherein he complained that he would never believe any citation to any source that agreed with my point of view. Need I add anything else?
[/QUOTE]

How about the truth? What you just wrote is a lie. I never said that. That is/was not my position. What I and others tried to beat into your head was that your cite didn’t rise to the level of proof you claimed. Now since you lied about my position and what I said, I’ll ask you to either provide a cite or apologize. You know, that thing you guys don’t like to do.

And “incautiously” is not the word I would have used to sum up your actions. If they were merely incautious, you would have simply seen the error of your ways when it was pointed out, no? But that’s not what you did,is it? After your cowardly and uncalled for pitting of me, you held your ground insisting that an author that held the same opinion as you concerning the foounders proved your position to be correct. Your error was explained to you ad nauseum, in great part by tomndebb, if I recall correctly, but you stuck to your guns and kept firing away. Problem was, by then they were pointing back at you.

[QUOTE=ambushed]
It’s great that you’re still waiting, magellan. Just hold your breath and I’ll get to that right away…
[/QUOTE]

Avoid the apology at all cost. Now that’s a stance!

Gold. Pure gold.

381

Its early morning in John Kerry’s hotel room. The phone rings, and Karl Rove’s voice says “Play a game of solitaire. See the Queen of Diamonds? Now go out there and sabotage the Dems…Bwah ha ha ha ha!..”