Kerry that Weight a Long Time
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This is Andrew Sullivan’s take, and he says it much better than I could:
The actual text was that if you didn’t work hard, “you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”
Now, I may be typical of many people’s real-time response to this piece of “news.” When I first heard the remarks, I cringed and was appalled. When I saw the context, I could see what Kerry might have meant, but also saw the need for him to apologize for the way his spoken remarks could have plausibly been misinterpreted. I stand by that. But now I also see the prepared remarks in black and white, I have a third wave of sentiment. I agree with Jay Nordlinger here:
When you see Kerry’s prepared text .. I guess you would have to accept it as authentic .. you can see precisely what Kerry meant: Bush is stupid, he has always been a slacker, that left him unprepared to lead in Iraq, blah, blah, blah.
So the debate over what Kerry actually meant is now over.
Now what do I next remember? I remember that the president vehemently went after Kerry, as did McCain. Now, when a president decides to do such a thing, his staff have examined the upsides and downsides every which way. They are paid to know any possible backfire for the remarks. And Rove is very smart. So this much I now know: knowing full well that he was deeply distorting Kerry’s meaning, the president used the quote full-bore to impugn Kerry’s commitment to the troops - and to help turn the base against the Democrats.
I know it’s politics. I’m not naive. But it’s also revealing about someone’s character that he could authorize and exploit such a thing. Most fair-minded people will have to concede that, in retrospect, this was a very, very, very low blow. It hadn’t sunk in for me till last night how low. In retrospect, this incident says much more about Bush than about Kerry. I’ll bet I’m not the only one mulling that over this morning.
Thanks for the comment Beeb. I certainly agree that this is merely late-October-last-second-slanderizing from the Bushites. Kerry blundered innocently enough for sure – proving his residual value is to remain deeply embedded behind the scenes. We’ve seen enough of him already. Kerry needs to avoid the “jokes” pretty much the same way Bush needs to avoid formal discourse, or perhaps neural activity, but tis just my opinion on this early cold morning in TN…....
This whole episode proves once again that the Dems are a bunch of wusses. It also disproves the liberal media label that wingnuts likes to sprout about. Anyone with half a brain knows that Kerry was referring to Bush. As Keith Olbermann opined: “Kerry called Bush stupid and Bush was too stupid to realize it.”
The slim chance that I could possibly vote for McCain has completely evaporated. He’s in bed with the same people that impugned his own service and integrity. If America keeps the Repugnants in control of either house of Congress, they deserve the ass-kicking that’ll result.
“Kerry called Bush stupid and Bush was too stupid to realize it.”
I loved that line! But the best was Colbert’s video of Tony Snow trying to figure out where the word “us” was left out of “you get stuck in Iraq.” Unlike Bush, however, Snow was being INTENTIONALLY stupid. But whether they are faking it or they are really that stupid is splitting hairs. As Sullivan says, this whole thing says more about them than Kerry.