You know, I'm an educator. I've made the most of my education. I've studied hard - I'm still doing so as I work to complete my master's degree. I do my homework (I've been known to assign it, too). I'm doing well, and yet I've failed to see the humor in Kerry's botched attempt at making a joke. It's not funny one way or the other - with or without the "us" that he supposedly omitted in the sound bite. I also have failed to understand why he drug his feet to apologize. I listened to his diatribe this morning on MacIntire in the Morning, and instead of taking responsibility for having made a statement in poor taste and bad judgement, it somehow transgressed into more spiteful criticism towards the evil Republicans.

I was disgusted.

Robert...even I couldn't figure out Kerry.
But more importantly...this Beatle site is the greatest site EVER!!!!!! Thanks for finding it!!!!

Joannah:

Always good to hear from you and your unique point of view.

No matter how Kerry's statement is interpreted, it is stupid, tasteless, and offensive. The real winner in all this, and if you listen closely I'm sure you you hear the cheering, comes from Mrs. Clinton's 2008 campaign staff. They recognize a suicidal moron when they see one.

Cruisin:

I had a feeling you would love, love love this Beatles site. For this you now owe me big-time-- and have to vote Republican.

"Kerry further insults their and our intelligence by insisting that he was just making a joke about President Bush -- a joke 'that was botched.'"

Robert, I do believe that Mr. Kerry was in fact attempting to make a joke at President Bush's expense. It is ironic that someone who wanted to insult the intelligence of another was not able to construct their sentence in a manner that would make the intended message unambiguous. Botched, indeed. I guess pride does goeth before the fall.

Now, on to more pleasant things: How does autumn find you?

-Mission Man

Yep. That John Kerry sures hates our military. After all, he sent an inadequate amount of soliders into a foreign country with questionable intelligence, with inadequate body armor and equipment and with no true plan for securing the country. All the while, John Kerry's administration is cutting veterans benefits left and right, even while veterans from the Iraq war are coming home with horrific physical and mental injuries.

Oh wait......

Perhaps a babke would do?

Mission Man:

A botched joke indeed, that if you are a bad student you end up... the President of the United States?

Got it.

Autumn finds me climbing up and down my Werner ladder--steady as a rock it is, thank you very much--as I built my Succah, took it down, and now find that some of the clay tiles on our roof are damaged and need to be repaired.
I said to Karen: "Buy me a tool belt and the job will get done."
Karen responded: "This is a job for somebody else. Remember Yossie!"

There's no doubt in my mind that for some elite types in the Democratic party, and to the Joel Steins of the world, the joke would have worked either way.

But here is the problem. Most Democratic voters would not find it funny and would be offended. But this has always been a great political tactic, take the outrageous act or comment of one visible person in the opposing party and paint the whole group with that brush. It's something the liberals do every time Pat Robertson says something stupid, (every day), or when Jesse Helms used to pull his schtick.

These are all non-stories, and an important element in the phony Culture War I referred to in the previous post. CNN lead with this non-story about Kerry all day, (I guess we're not so liberally biased after all), and we were so desperate to keep it going that we repeatedly ran a soundbite from Hillary Clinton where all you saw was the back of Hillary's head).

The real story is how the divisive leaders in both parties continue to play on Americans' fear, increasingly now the fear of each other, every single day.

The ruling class has divided and conquered America in the eyes of the ignorant news media... thankfully the real truth on the ground is quite different.

Hourman:

No world is perfect, least of all the world of world-wide intelligence, nor the world of the military quartermasters, yet the fact remains that fighting terrorists hardly qualifies as evidence of one who hates our military.

Hourman:

I don't think anyone hates our military, not even John Kerry. To suggest otherwise is silly. Okay, maybe Joel Stein, Jane Fonda, and the crazy folks who say American troops should be killed in Iraq because we're "too nice" to gays here in the states, (check it out: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0829-05.htm) do, but they represent less than 1% of anything.

But there are people on many different sides taking political and financial advantage of this war. And the longer it goes on, the more I fear it is the people getting fringe benefits from it who will prolong it. I supported the invasion of Iraq, and I still support the war... but there can be no denying this was planned poorly. I feel personally guilty about that. I wish I had asked more questions about what we were going to do when we inevitably destroyed Saddam's army. And I find it very disturbing that people with a lot more responsibility for this war than I'll ever have seem less guilty or worried about that.

But to say that Bush or Cheney is deliberately using the military here is unfair. Is Karl Rove using the military's situation as a political tool, yes? But that's a different argument.

Jake:

No one could have foreseen that the Shia would blow up women and children in marketplaces, in mosques, etc. No one could have foreseen the kind of muslim on muslim sectarian violence. We tend to forget that that was not the norm. This kind of barbaric violence was stricly limited to, ahem, Muslims against Jews in Israel. To say that the war was "poorly planned" is just unfair. Twelve of the 17 Iraqui provinces are peaceful and quiet. The jihadists concentrate their barbarisms where the cameras roll. Is Karl Rove using the military situation as a political tool? Not half as much as CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and the rest of the shameless liberal media.

>

Actually there were a lot of people who did and who said we were using too few troops. They weren't all whackos either. I'm not accusing you of this, but it seems like any critic of any aspect of the war is simply labeled a liberal or a Bush-basher or an opportunist and it's left at that. Too bad, Harry Truman probably saved thousands of American lives in WW II by strictly auditing wasteful spending in the military DURING the war. Now, he would be called a traitor.

RA> This is what he said:

You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

RA> We all know what this means. It's not complicated. Nor is it open to multiple interpretations.

It *is* possible to see this as a botched joke aimed at Bush, although maybe I am being too Talmudic. The key words here are "if you make the most of it"

On the surface this sounds like of course, the "joke" he is making is that if you don't do well in school, you wind up in Iraq (It's a joke because Kerry doesn't mean that seriously or literally)

This way he is encouraging getting good grades etc - the platyityudes they say all the time.

But it could be that what he in encouraging is not getting good grades, but getting full advamntage of your education, NOT getting good grades. So the joke is if you don't really learn, you'll wind up in Iraq.

One problem is this "do well"

The only way to make it make sense is that he means do a good job whatever you are doing.

RA> A botched joke indeed, that if you are a bad student you end up... the President of the United States?

A failure at being President.

Of course it is in eithere case a very bad joke, ad Kerry comes off badly in not being abkle to be articulate, if taht is what he meant. If he blames anyone else for not understanding him...he's lying. But maybe taht;'s what he was trying to say