I notice Fox News is still flogging this story as hard as it can today (and lying about it…they keep matter of factly reporting that Kerry said “US troops in Iraq are uneducated”). The irony is that October was the worst month for troop losses since the initial invasion. The right wing media’s fake outrage and blatant dishonesty over this is really something to behold. They’re even bringing up all the Swift Boat crap again. They really are desperate.
My initial reaction was desmay that a Dem would have let his guard down enough to say something tailormade for the Repubs to spin to distract from more substantial issues. I think the outcome of several upcoming elections may be influenced/determined by a number of relatively unsophisticated right-leaning voters who may be swayed by the type of empty pandering towards patriotism this opportunity affords the Repubs.
What I would really like, however, is for Kerry and others to take this as an opportunity to continue responding to the Repub attacks aggressively. Call a spade a spade, a mistake a mistake, a chickenhawk a chickenhawk, and a liar a liar. Now is not the time to mince words. I hope they take this opportunity to say what a good percentage of voters on the fence may be fearing to express themselves, before lapsing back into their general Dem muddle.
Of course the colleges are full of anti-war types. All the Young Republicans enlisted long ago.
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to hear you bad mouthing the troops. You owe our brave soldiers an apology for your disgusting slur on their patriotism.
And “Kerry is a poopyhead” expresses this message, how?
For those who claim that the joke applies equally well to the troops as to Bush, even though what little we know of the context seems to point to it being about Bush… how do you explain the use of the word “stuck”?
Troops rotate out, after all. But Bush has gotten himself and the nation stuck in a war with no exit strategy. Is this not an accurate gloss?
So where is the word “soldier”? Or the word “troops”? Where is any such reference? Where is the aforementioned Certificate of Telepathy to assure us that you have the capacity to deduce the inference without any actual inference? How did he communicate this inference? A coded shrug of the shoulders? A particular raise of the eyebrow? By what means does he signal a change in topic without using, you know, words?
Well, it’s one thing for a nobody to look like an insensitive ass, but it’s another for a leader of the party to look like an insensitive ass whether he’s up for office or not.
And his response seems to be more of a venting about what went on in 2004 than any substantive defense of this remark. Even if he was referring to Bush, the minute he says “what I really meant was…”, he’s fucked. He’s getting to be an expert at it.
As for it’s ultimate effect, who knows? Maybe it’ll get some stay-at-homes off their butts.
Well, it’s the leading story right now on CNN, Faux News, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, and every other Republican mouthpiece in the country. So plainly the Repugs think that it’s going to make a difference with undecided voters. Will it work? I guess we’ll find out in a week. This thread demonstrates fairly clearly that no one other than shameless Republican whores believes that the joke was anything other than a Bush bash. However, the Republicans have total control over all major media outlets, so they can easily prevent the American people from hearing what Kerry actually said and simply trick most folks into believing tht Kerry insulted the Army.
As I said, wait and see. It’s tough to win against a party that controls the entire news media.
Kerry is not the leader of the party and said nothing insensitive. It’s not possible for anyone with any intellectual honesty to believe that Kerry was insulting the troops.
I spent two hours this morning in a service department waiting room. The TV was tuned to Fox news where I heard a retired general who is now a military analyst for Fox news say that two of Kerry’s wounds were self inflicted. He also called for Kerry’s immediate retirement. When he said that two of the wounds were self inflicted, I lost it and shouted at the TV “That’s a goddamned lie.” It’s a wonder they didn’t call the men with the white coats and butterfly net.
I cannot believe that Kerry was dumb enough to actually say what he did. It wouldn’t surprise me much if the Dems lost every bit of lead they have built up. What Kerry said is exactly what Bush has been praying for. All other issues will be buried under the BS this comment will generate.
He’s done it before. (Do you really need a cite?) Is that because the intellectual among us realize he’s an idiot?
No he hasn’t.
Like I said, no one with any intellectual honesty…
Good thing he didn’t have one.
I was in the Navy with Dio during the same approximate time period in the 80’s, although we never met to the best of my knowledge. One thing that he is failing to mention is the all-important AFQT score from the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test. All jobs within the Navy at that time (and very likely still today) had minimum AFQT scores to qualify. It was a two digit number which summarized your score on the ASVAB. Mine was an 86, which qualified me to do anything. Lower scores were restricted to jobs such as the all purpose Boatswains Mate or Mess Specialist. Am I saying that all BM’s or MS’s are dumb? No. But I am saying that you won’t find any idiots running the nuclear reactors.
The military is just like society in general. It has under and over achievers, those who are goal oriented and professional as well as those who are counting the days until they get out.
It is a left-wing fantasy that the military is full of poorly educated and poorly motivated troops being duped (or sacrificed) by the military industrial complex to somehow “pad their bottom line”.
As for Kerry, he was trying to throw red meat to a friendly crowd and let his mouth get ahead of his brain.
There it is! I see it now! Play the video very, very slowly…right there! See how he curls his lip just before he says “stuck in Iraq”! Very clearly, just for a half-second. As everyone knows, that is a clear and unambiguous signal that he is now talking about The Troops. You might miss it if you weren’t gifted with preternatural discernment. Which I’m not, I pretty much have to interpret the words said, rather than rely on telepathic rays.
So, tell me…when GeeDubya says that voting for the Dems is voting for terror, is he talking about the Green Bay Packers? I mean, I know what the words say, but what do the voices in Sean Hannity’s head say?
Well said. This is a tempest in a teapot that has been seized upon panicky Republicans who need something to stem the tide of public opinion that seems to be running so strongly against them.
The controversy might also put a stake through the heart of Kerry’s '08 presidential bid, too. So much the better, IMHO. He had his shot in '04 and badly blew it.
That ship has sailed, Luci.
Hush, Sam. You’ll wake them.
Bah. GPAs mean diddly squat when talking about these two. Both were born wealthy and guaranteed to live their lives in wealth no matter how they did in school. Neither had any incentive to do particularly well in school and it turns out neither one did. Listening to Kerry talk and then listening to Bush talk is much more indicative of their intelligence than looking back in the 1960s to their GPAs.