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Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

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That Kerry comment

Posted: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 7:01 PM by Will Femia

I didn't get to see much TV today, so I don't know how big a deal John Kerry's comment about education and Iraq is beyond the blogosphere.  But I do know that I haven't seen the right side of the punditsphere this lit in a long time.  I eventually found video of the remark here.  I wouldn't mind a fuller transcript to get a little context.  (Wednesday morning add:  Reading through some of the commentary out there, it seems the context is in Kerry himself.  Some people are already convinced he hates the military so to their ears there is no other interpretation of what Kerry said.  Someone else could probably say the same words and have it be understood that Bush was a lousy student so he got the U.S. stuck in Iraq.  But Kerry carries too much baggage.)

For his part, Kerry calls it a botched joke:

"My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.
...
[T]his president and his administration didn't do their homework. They didn't study what would happen in Iraq. They didn't study and listen to the people who were the experts and would have told them.

And they know that's what I was talking about yesterday."

Meanwhile, can you guess what Kerry's consultants told him he should have done when he was Swiftboated in 2004?  His press release is another hint.

UPDATE:  OK, I see this goes way beyond the blogosphere, but since I already wrote the entry, up it goes.

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Comments

I think it means that John Kerry is Presidential material in much the same way as George W. Bush is. I mean that, if you take "Bushisms" literaly, the President is an idiot. Of course, Kerry is an idiot if he doesn't actually appologise. Maybe the Republicans ARE nitpicking, but the fact remains that the words Kerry actually spoke ARE insulting. I saw the clip, and it wasn't an obvious mistake. I guess in order to be President, you can't admit a mistake without looking weak or foolish.

Charles Allen, Wilmington, DE (Sent Wednesday, November 01, 2006 8:00 AM)

Actually, it goes quite further than Kerry's comments. It speaks to the Democrats continual depiction of Republicans and conservatives as ill-educated stupid sheep who will blindly follow without a thought. Unfortunately, many who vote the democratic ticket are oblivious to the slander and derision aimed their way by their own candidates. The limousine liberals are the slimiest portion of society, spending and making money off the backs of the very people they claim to serve, all the while chuckling to themselves about the stupid masses that elected them. John Kerry meant exactly what he said to a liberal college body - get a degree, follow me, or your stupidity will get you classified as a lower class citizen - a soldier. How degrading to the men and women currently serving our country, whose expertise, experience, intelligence and dedication should be a source of pride to all Americans. John Kerry does not see it that way.

Michael G, Jacksonville, FL (Sent Wednesday, November 01, 2006 10:13 AM)

I think you are dead on about the baggage that Kerry has. He has the reputation of being an elitest snob. So, when he says something that sounds like he is bashing the troops, your first reaction is to think that he actually is. I saw the clip, and it didn't look like a joke, botched or otherwise. John Kerry is stuck in 1969 and thinks he is talking about Vietnam. Someone should buy him a calendar.

John~ Cincy (Sent Wednesday, November 01, 2006 3:20 PM)

Get a clue people. They had put out a transcript *before* his stump speech, so we know he simply left out the important "us" word. Also, note that most commentators (who want to use this to distract us from real issues) are carefully leaving out the preceding sentence of his joke, where he put it in context of Bush. The missing "us" changed it to "you get *us* stuck in Iraq".

P Kimelman, Alamo, CA (Sent Thursday, November 02, 2006 11:50 AM)

I am proudly serving in the U.S. Military. I have run into reports concerning body armor. It appears that the Interceptor Body Armor, is inferior to Dragonskin. From what I've been subjected to in equipment, it is always to the lowest bidder. Is it all about the money, or the people?

John Doe, Greenboro, Alabama (Sent Saturday, May 26, 2007 6:54 PM)

How's the buffet in Dallas, TX.?  I wouldn't know, since I only eat what I should...

Bruce W. Raulston (Sent Monday, September 24, 2007 12:26 AM)



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