Vice President Cheney signs the “Jon Carry halp us” poster! 
From Michelle Malkin via Brian, who’s filling in for Sister Toldjah!
And, in an almost too funny for words scene, John Kerry’s own website has the following editorial, copied from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
-
Kerry’s Remark: Right either way
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Editorial Board
Republicans evidenced their election desperation by braying about an offhand comment that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., made at a California college rally.
“Education” Kerry said “– if you make the most of it and you study hard and 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.”
Was Kerry making fun of the president, or warning students against the pitfalls awaiting the undereducated in general?
It doesn’t matter. Kerry was right either way.
Kerry wasn’t saying — regardless of the Republican spin — that our troops are stupid.
Kerry’s intended point was obvious. President Bush didn’t do his homework before he ordered the invasion. He didn’t study the intricacies of Mideast religion, culture, politics and tribalism. He wasn’t smart about it and we are stuck in Iraq.
Really? What, then, must the Editorial Board think of Senator Kerry, who voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, including stating that he’d have done so again in August of 2004? After all, if the Editorial Board thinks that the President didn’t do his homework and “wasn’t smart about it,” wouldn’t such a description necessarily include those who agreed with him?
- Although there are plenty of well-educated people in our armed forces — Kerry was one of them — military service has long been an opportunity employer for those with less education and fewer skills than they need to work in the private sector. Indeed, the military sells itself as a place to garner skills and to help pay for higher education.
And wars, including this one, are often fought by those less privileged — albeit no less smart — than the sons and daughters of those who lead us into them.
Apologies? Sure, from the cut-and-run Democratic candidates who’ve cancelled appearances with Kerry.
In other words, the Editorial Board of the Seattle Post-(Un)Intelligencer has exactly the same attitude toward our men and women in uniform that Senator Kerry has — and tried to apologize for.
Of course, Senator Kerry was for apologizing for his remarks, before he was against apologizing for what he said. Hot Air and Michelle Malkin rightly called this taking back the apology; it certainly lets you know just what the Distinguished Gentleman from Massachusetts thinks about the troops!
Once again, thanks to Brian at Sister Toldjah for the link to the story.
(From the commenter formally known as Black Jack, I had to change my handle. Increasingly, spam filters denied access.)
Kerry’s slur on the troops is nothing new, he’s been doing it for years. His career in politics began with vicious denunciations of our men and women serving in Vietnam, and have continued unabated ever since. His latest insult is only the most recent example in a long string of similar blanket insults and allegations of dishonorable misconduct.
And, he’s not alone. Opinions similar to his are widely held among Democrats, liberals, and “Progressives.” They are ubiquitous within the Drive by Media and can be found in the academic departments on nearly every college and university campus in America.
The Left in this country hates the military, they hate the men and women who serve, and they hate the ideals which inspire them.
Oh, the Left says they support the troops, but they don’t, not really, not at all. They only say they do because it would cost them votes if ever they were to reveal how anti-American and anti-military their opinions actually are.
If the midterm election results don’t go the Left’s way, they’ll reveal their true nature. Wait, watch, take note, and never forget.
Yeah, I guess that I can see how Spam® filters would intercept the old screen name — and it’s initials!
What would our friends on the far left do if the insurgency in Iraq was finally put down, and a safe, democratic nation was built there?
Come on, Dana.
Do you really think that Kerry’s intent was to say that “stupid people end up serving in Iraq?”
Are you really that foolish?
LA: No, I don’t think that was his intention, because nobody in Senator Kerry’s position would have said something so politically damaging intentionally, especially at the time he said it.
Rather, I think he fouled up and said what he really thought. That happens from time to time: someone in the public eye says something and winds up issuing an apology — because he slipped up and said what he really believed. That’s why I never believe those apologies are genuine, regardless of whether they come from the right or the left.
Of course, the picture from National Guardsmen in Iraq show that they believe it was directed at them. And the fact that Mr Kerry (or his minions) posted that editorial on his own website, johnkerry.com, tells me that he really does have a relatively low opinion of our men in uniform.
The people to whom that refers are those who join right out of high school, before college — people with (relatively) the same skill levels as the high school graduates who go on to college, when they first enter college! It’s ridiculous to think of people who join the military out of high school as somehow inferior to those who go to college, because you must compare them at the same point of their lives: when they first enter the military and when they first enter college.
That Senator Kerry would post, or allow to have been posted, on his own site that editorial can only be seen as a defense of the position that has been imputed to him! If he had really meant it solely as a criticism of President Bush, he’d never have raised such a defense in an arena he controls.
Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me if that gets taken down from his site, and quickly. (As of the posting of this comment, 5:41 PM EST, the article is still up on Mr Kerry’s site.)
LA asked, “Do you really think that Kerry’s intent was to say that “stupid people end up serving in Iraq?â€
I have no doubt Senator Kerry would like an opportunity to revise and extend his remarks. I also have no doubt that what he said faithfully represents his true feelings.
After all, he’s been making disparaging comments about the military for over 35 years. Many of those comments are on the record, and are not subject to interpretation.
His slur at PCC was nothing new. That particular notion was a commonplace all during the Vietnam war. I’ve heard it dozens of times, usually in reference to the draft when college students got deferments and drop-outs were quickly inducted.
Was what he said foolish? Of course it was. Should he have quickly apologized? Absolutely.
But, he didn’t apologize, he arrogantly refused to take responsibility for the words that came out of his own mouth, and instead insulted the intelligence of his audience by his double talk and bluster.
John Kerry made a blithering fool of himself. Why pretend otherwise?
So you’re saying that of the class of 2006 this Spring, the kids who went on to the service and the kids who went on to college come from identical pools?
Identical pools economically? Probably not. But reasonably identical pools as far as education levels are concerned? Far closer.
Indeed, Senator Kerry differentiated them not by intelligence, but by saying that the ones in college had to study hard while they were in college to avoid getting stuck in Iraq; that certainly isn’t him saying that they were just so much smarter that they could cruise through.
Oh, I ABSOLUTELY think that was his intention, even if only on a “subconscious” level. Kerry’s “intelligence” appears to be vastly over-rated, to judge merely by his reactions to political crises. He stupidly failed to address the Swift Boat vets criticisms, thus dooming his 2004 campaign. And his reaction to his latest insult of the troops is just more proof of his utter ineptness when in a “think on your feet” type situation. Most people, if they really had “flubbed a joke”, would have the common sense to react with humility, to show embarassment and perhaps deflate the situation with some light, self-deprecating humor. Instead, Kerry did the absolute worst, stupidest thing possible – he lashed out at his “enemies”, blaming THEM for his screw-up, then, puffed up with defiance and ego, pompously announced that he had no intention of apologizing to anyone. And then, in an incredible display of idiocy/cowardice/tone deafness, he then issued an anonymous, wimpy, yet smarmy non-apology, not in person but from his website. Kerry might be “smart” in a chess team/debate club sort of way, but when it comes to the kind of intelligence that functions in real life situations, the senator is as dumb as a stump. That he is also haughty and insufferable just adds to his deficiencies.
I don’t understand what you folks get out of continuing to hate John Kerry so much.
For a political movement that prides itself on family and maintaining the moral high ground you sure project a great deal of hate.
Hate? No, LA, you mistake us — or at least me. I don’t hate Mr Kerry at all. Indeed, I kind of like him, as a Republican would like a useful idiot on the other side.
Now, if you had asked if I respect him, the answer would be no, I don’t have any respect for him at all.
I might not think a lot of Howard Dean’s politics, but at least I can respect him: he pretty much stands up for what he believes.
That’s not just a cheap dig…
Don’t you feel strange walking around with all this irrational hate all of the time?
I neither like nor respect John Kerry – but I certainly don’t hate him.
I do hate Don Rumsfeld, though.
If you neither like nor respect Mr Kerry, why can’t you understand that those of us who disagree with his politics much more than you do would neither like nor respect him?
I won’t presume to speak for anyone else here, but I don’t hate Mr Kerry, as I mentioned above. I like the fact that he is actually more useful to the conservative cause than to the left, other, of course, than his vote in the Senate. And I certainly like the fact that he ran a most inept campaign in 2004!
And I am somewhat mystified as to why you or anyone else would hate Donald Rumsfeld. The Secretary of Defense does not run the war in Iraq; he is a bureaucrat who is in charge of budgets and organizations in the DoD, but he is neither the strategist of the war nor the instigator of it. He does, however, have a quite interesting way of demolishing poorly informed journalists.
The continual digs against Secretary Rumsfeld have always seemed to me to simply be diverted attacks on President Bush. The President is the one who set the policy in Iraq, but he’s not subject to political pressure to resign.
LA wrote:
If memory serves, he’s your senator, right?
I would be interested in knowing why you neither like nor respect Mr Kerry. As nearly as I can tell from your site, you are in agreement with his politics in most cases.
I think you are mistaking honest commentary about the man for “hate”. I don’t hate him. He’s not worth hating. He’s a pompous, vain, haughty man with a vastly overinflated opinion of himself. In short, he’s a buffoon, a figure to be laughed at, not hated. And he probably just cost his own Party any chances of winning this Tuesday.
[...] That’s why I subtitled one of my articles on Mr Kerry’s inanity The Gift That Keeps On Giving. Kerry tried to get on top of the problem. He explained convincingly that he had simply “botched†the line. He was supposed to say, “… you get us stuck in Iraq.†As in Bush. But the explanations came too late. If he had corrected his garble during the speech, or quickly produced a copy of the text afterward to show that it was merely a slip of the tongue, that might have been the end of it. Or, he could have simply apologized. But instead, Kerry—who still kicks himself for not fighting back harder when Republicans “swift boated†him in 2004—responded with defiance. It was the chance he had been waiting, and preparing, for: The opportunity to debut the new John Kerry, the one who doesn’t get rolled. “I’ve seen the worst of what they throw at you, so there’s no hesitation on my part to know how to handle that or what to do,†Kerry told NEWSWEEK a few weeks before the incident. “I’m in a fighting mood.†Appearing on the Don Imus radio show two days after the speech, Kerry was clearly looking to show he wasn’t going to let the GOP make a mockery of him again. “These guys have failed America,†Kerry said. “The people who owe an apology are people like Donald Rumsfeld, who didn’t send enough troops, who didn’t listen to the generals, who has made every mistake in the book.†Imus flat out begged Kerry to cease and desist. “Stop talking. Go home, get on the bike, go windsurfing, anything. Stop it. You’re going to ruin this.†[...]
[...] Common Sense Political Thought [...]