Kerry's smackdown meltdown

It wasn't a meltdown. At least it wasn't supposed to be. John Kerry's reply to criticism about his gaffe regarding troop intelligence was probably a calculated counterattack, ala Clinton on Fox News. Besides, they probably figured the MSM would run with the counterattack sound bites leaving the gaffe explanation to his spinmeisters, who are working feverishly to turn everything into a Karl Rove GOP stunt.

I halfway expected him to open his sport coat and flash those three purple hearts, but hey, I'm just a nutjob chickenhawk. Of course, by his definition so is Harold Ford, Jr.

Any rational person who's seen the first video will surely find the second response puzzling. It's pretty hard to take those comments out of context. Apologizing just wasn't an option.

So much silliness, but at least we learned some things. For example, we learned that those who "rubber stamped" Bush's Iraq policies in Congress were wrong, which I guess includes democrats such as Harold Ford, Jr. We learned we have a "cut n run" policy in Afghanistan even though NATO forces are fighting there, the same international approach he advocated in 2004. We just blew away some Taliban/AQ in a disguised maddrassas the other day.

By his staunch refusal to apologize for such an obvious gaffe we learned that he's stubborn and would be e hard-pressed to ever apologize as president, something he's accused Bush of doing.

We learned that he considers himself 'a real man' and hack republicans as 'straw men'. Perhaps he was just being seasonal? We learned that we can't trust any dang thing he ever says because it might end up being a 'botched joke'. Like the one about killing the real bird with one stone on Maher's show.

And finally we learned that America made the right choice in 2004. Granted the pickins were slim, but we got it right.

Happy Halloween, folks. And ain't it great to be in America, where we can have passionate debate and dissent without killing each other?!

HAROLD WEIGHS IN 11/01/06

Said Junior in response:

“Whatever the intent, Senator Kerry was wrong to say what he said,” Rep. Ford said. “He needs to apologize to our troops.”

He went on to say Bush needs a course correction, blah, etc, but he had to. After all, according to Kerry Harold is a chickenhawk for supporting the war and never serving.

Now, do I think Ford is? No. It's a pretty silly concept. But so is leaving the perception the troops are dumb, then refusing to apologize, then accusing Bush of Swift Boating him again. What happened to the gravitas?

MORE 11/01/06

Kerry has now apologized to the troops. In the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson "that's all you had to say, honky". Changed it slightly for context. Mr. Gravitas still insists it was a botched joke (he's got no choice politcally) but some of the rank and file supporters seem to think that what he says he didn't mean was actually pretty ok.

But the republicans should be careful here. They were right to pile on, he deserved it, but the post-apology waters can sometimes be filled with crocs--in this case a dejected MSM loaded for revenge bear. So that's all I've got to say...well maybe just one more comment for the road.










LAST 11/01/06
It's probably a waste to keep beating this dying horse, but one nagging loose end remains. If these lines were actually in the speech and not created after the fact:

A Kerry aide said the senator was supposed to say, "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.

And assuming he'd pulled off the lines correctly, what was the joke? Isn't that what he says 24/7? Why would he now call his basic rhetoric a joke?