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Kerry Apologizes -- Again
New statement from John Kerry:
As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.
It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don't want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.
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He couldn't have done this yesterday?
November 1, 2006 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think he did. (Hence the "again")
November 1, 2006 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, he didn't. Yesterday he said he apologizes to nobody. This morning he apologized for botching a punch line.
If he understood the other side one bit(Lying Liars was appropriate), he'd would have known how they were going to distort and run with this. He gave them an excuse to try and excite their base and give them a reason to go out and vote against "Kerry Democrats". It was bad enought that he left the party open to this kind of attack, but to leave it festering???
November 1, 2006 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Big deal. It was one day, and anyone with any sense knew what he meant. Those without it are already voting for the GOP. If you truly don't think that' the case, then is it worse to say that if you don't get educated you will get stuck in Iraq or to be the President and party who stuck our soldiers in Iraq to die for what? It brings Iraq back to front and sender and the crisis that is Iraq.
Read the Imus transcript. He hit back plenty hard. That doesn't matter. The media are more than happy to parrot GOP BS.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6928257/
Read kos. Read mydd. They aren't worried for good reason. Stop acting like a nervous nelly.
November 1, 2006 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do wish you liberals would reign in this really unpleasant tendency of calling anyone who doesn't share your views stupid (or, in the case of "ohiomeister" - without sense) - it may be fun; it may even be what you genuinely believe, but you do the Democratic Party long-term damage among swing voters the party needs to regain the White House (and, incidentally, Congress).
Kerry said something stupid, that could quite easily and reasonably be misunderstood - not least because, as he himself acknowledged, he didn't deliver the "joke" the way he meant to anyway. But even if he had delivered it correctly (or at least in the way you seem to be claiming he meant it) - in other words claiming, yet again, that the President is stupid, it's still not good enough for a US Senator to be bandying around such trite and untrue gags.
Last time I checked, stupid people don't get into Yale, as both Senator Kerry and President Bush did. Disagree with the President passionately all you like, but please respect the office of the President, and if you can't articulate your argument any better than calling your opponent stupid, then perhaps it's you who is lacking in the intelligence department.
Senator Kerry has now apologised. That's fine. Let's move on.
November 1, 2006 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not nervous, and I'm not scared.
I am pissed.
Maybe more mad than I've been at a Democratic politician since Clinton came clean about Monica - and for the same reason. This was stupidity and conceit on a jawdropping scale.
If there is anyone on Earth who should know how the Bush/Rove GOP operates, it is John Kerry. Did this idiot think no one was paying attention to him? Since he obviously did not get it before, allow me to spell it out: Your piehole can be worth votes to the GOP, so if you want to make a dumb, humorless joke that even remotely might involve anyone in Iraq - make damned sure you do not blow the punchline.
And then he drags it out for two days because he wants to refight the 2004 campaign? Excuse me, did I overlook John Kerry's name on a ballot anywhere in this election? This year nothing, not one damn thing, is about you, Mr. Kerry. Your inability to understand that has kept your name at the top of the news for two days while the Iraqi government ordered the end of a search for an abducted US soldier, the KIA count for October reached the fourth-highest monthly total since the beginning of the war, Allen's campaign avoids national attention for his arrest records, divorce records, and criminal assault and battery, and more. Six days before an election, and the Republicans get a three - news cycle reprieve from someone who isn't even on the ballot.
But what's done is done. If Kerry puts his party or his country above himself, he will stay out of sight and away from every microphone until after the election. As he said today, he doesn't want to be a distraction to these other races.
Anyone think he can do it? I'd bet my lunch money that he's talking to reporters again by tomorrow night.
November 1, 2006 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. Why he did not simply issue this statement the day after. Stay under the radar a day and then start up again a day later answering any questions about his joke with a version of the same statement is beyond me. But what do I know. I think it is more reprehensible to send young men and women to death for not good reason than to question their intelligence.
November 1, 2006 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the new statement is useful. The first one reminded me of the Pope apologizing if his statement at Ravenbrook was misunderstood i.e. not apologizing for the content but expressing sorrow that people didn't get it.
This apology essentially says I'm sorry if I
caused hurt. I think that's useful.
Kerry is brave , honorable and liberal. But presidential politics is a bridge too far for him.
November 1, 2006 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do wish you liberals would reign in this really unpleasant tendency of calling anyone who doesn't share your views stupid
As opposed to what? Centrists calling liberals unpatriotic?
Last time I checked, stupid people don't get into Yale...
Really? When your daddy and granddaddy are Senators?
Dissent Protects Democracy.
November 1, 2006 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Best if we old soldiers just die quietly huh? If we had any intelligence, we wouldn't have been soldiers huh?
The real disgrace is the abandonment of Kerry by Democrats just as Bush was abandoning an American soldier in Iraq.
I salute those who didn't abandon Kerry to the terrorists - most notably Ned Lamont.
Best, Terry
November 2, 2006 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Abandon Kerry to the terrorists???
Troll, troll, troll your boat...
November 2, 2006 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether or not Kerry needed to apologize for a "botched" joke is debatable and trivial when one considers all the "botching" that the administration has done- Cakewalk... greet as liberators, weeks rather than months, WMD, ad nauseum... the effect of which has lead to thousands of deaths, billions of dollars lost, loss of credibility in international affairs, and worse, an increase in danger from terrorists. Where is the balance here? Toimeme
November 2, 2006 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kerry did provide ammunition to those too trusting of MSM to actually view the statement in question.
I am willing to bet that there will be little attention paid to Boehner's (R-OH) statement to Wolf Blitzer that Rumsfeld is not responsible for the Iraq deabacle, it's the generals. At least Kerry was attempting humor. Boehner is scapegoating.
At some point it's the responsibility of the general public to know the difference.
November 2, 2006 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You lot just don't get it. It is not patriotic to call either the President of the United States, or US soldiers stupid - whether or not you believe them to be, just keep your snide opinions zipped. Can you manage that? Nope.
It's not patriotic to accuse your opponents of being liars - whether or not you believe them to be, just leave your conspiracy theories in your therapist's office.
This is why Rove has been spectacularly successful: his attacks seem to have sent a signal to some on the left of the Democratic Party that it's perfectly alright to get even further down in the gutter, and that if you shout louder, smear harder, be even ruder, misrepresent more imaginatively and heighten cynicism even more than it already is, you're somehow going to win.
The sad thing is how many of you evidently love this pathetic, damaging form of discourse; it's all on the left, and all its doing is deepening the polarisation of the country; a polarisation you'll always lose from.
If you don't like being characterised a certain way, don't adopt the (ludicrous) positions that enable you to be characterised that way: it's really not that hard, but you don't do it by just calling those who do it "stupid" or "liars".
So, how many more elections are you going to cost the Democrats before reality slaps you in the face? I'd just like to know, so I can tell the people who really need Democrats in office how much longer they're going to have to suffer without them?
November 2, 2006 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it is unpatriotic to insult the ruler of your government, then weren't the first patriots (Adams, Jefferson, Henry, et al)...unpatriotic?
:headscratch:
November 2, 2006 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kerry never called the troops stupid or uneducated.
If people would just listen to his speech you would know tht he was talking about this adminintration. Stop listening to whaT THE REPUBLICANS ARE SAYING. It is not unpatriotic to call Bush stupid cause everybody knows he is.. I am sure the troops no better than to believe what Bush said about Kerry's speech Cause Bush already lied to them..
November 6, 2006 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
The troops respond . . . .
November 6, 2006 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink