Words mean things

I can't believe people defended John Kerry when he said what he did.

I know what he & his people claim was supposed to be the wording of his "joke", but that doesn't matter at all.

It's what your 1st impression is when you initially hear the words that came out of his mouth that matter.

I know that he was trying to be funny as he insulted the President, but that's not what he ended up saying. And what he did say could reasonably be taken as Kerry insulting the troops in Iraq. And for that, he should have apologized.

He's not a stupid man, regardless of how badly he & the President did at Yale. He knew right away that he said it wrong, and he should have said so - RIGHT THEN. Had he done that, nobody could have said squat against him.

But he's a smug prick and highly arrogant. He hates Bush, and he let that hatred cloud his judgment. The apology would be to the troops, and not Bush. He could have apologized to them & not have to feel like he lost any points in his continual war with Bush. But he couldn't see it that way, and refused to apologize - until his fellow Democrats called for him to do it.
And I have no respect for him by doing it on his website. He was on TV for the original comments, he was on tv for his attack apology, so he should have gone on tv & apologized.

Kerry has no place insulting the President on intelligence. They both went to Yale & they both averaged a "D". (Bush was 1 point higher, but they both were below an 80 average.) Kerry voted for troops to be deployed in Iraq, so they are "stuck" there because of him just as much as they are because of the President.

But you have to realize that Kerry has a history of bashing the troops. He came back from Vietnam and testified that his fellow soldiers were committing atrocities. Kerry became a member of "Vietnam Veterans Against the War" and participated in war protests. He has said that the troops "terrorize women & children" in Iraq and has accused them of committing war crimes. He has said that a draft would prevent the troops from only consisting of uneducated ethnic minorities. So what he said about only dumb people getting stuck in the military might be his actual opinion on the people who makeup the troops.

Remember, John Kerry is a smug, elitist who thinks he is smarter & better than everyone. (especially the President & his administration) And don't forget that he has animosity towards Bush over the 2004 election results. It shapes him and everything he says/does.

Do I think he would intentionally insult the troops at an event that would be broadcast to the world & scrutinized by everyone on the news networks? No, I don't think he's that stupid.

But you must admit that what he did say isn't a clear reference to the President. If you go old school and diagram the sentence, you can't point to Bush as the subject of the comment.

He was talking to students. And since he didn't reference Bush in that sentence, the "you" in the beginning is the students. And until he references someone specifically, they continue to be the subject. And that is why his words are seen as insulting the intelligence of the troops in Iraq.
Now, if you review the entire section a few times - maybe even read the transcript of what he said - and you think about it for awhile... then you realize that he tried to make a joke about the decision that Bush made in sending troops to Iraq. It's a high brow way of calling the President "stupid" - which I don't find funny.

A US Senator should act more dignified. You don't insult the office of the President. You can disagree with the man & his policies, but don't attack the Office with a juvenile attempt to be funny.

I promise you that the people who hate us are loving every minute of how Democrats have been stooping so low to insult the President, The V.P., and other members of this Administration. By doing that, we are not focusing on them, and they are the enemy, not Democrats or Republicans.
I like the way Harold Ford explained why Kerry needed to apologize. To me, everyone else was just playing politics, especially Hillary.

Kerry knew that what he said could reasonable be seen as insulting the troops. He should have apologized for the way his words came out wrong, and for how he mistakenly said something that could be taken as an insult. Do it, do it quickly after it happened - and then your opponents have nothing to use against you.

But it's 2 days later & it's still in the news... and that means it's another day when real issues are passed over for partisan politics.

And we, the American People, end up being the loser.