posted
If Senator John Kerry keeps on, he may ensure that Democrats do not take over the House in the up-coming midterm election. Of course, shooting himself in the foot is not surprising behavior for a person who fragged himself in the butt in Vietnam and then applied for a purple heart for it. But isn't there anyone in the Democratic Party capable of telling Senator Kerry to sit down and shut up, before he drags them all down?
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I doubt any of the offend veterans would have been offended by this statement if the right wing media hadn't started spinning it as an insult to the troops.
Please don't try to speak for us. We have mouths of our own and we do know how to use them. We are not as stupid as most people would like to believe. Reread the last part of his statement and tell me how we were to take it differently. Screw this. I'm outa here. See y'all later.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Kerry's record was essentially the same as Bush's at Yale.
Kerry was known for spending time on extra-curriculars instead of schoolwork.
So, it seems tha if it can be said Bush didn't study or do his homework, then it can be said about Kerry to the same extent.
Therefore, according to Kerry's own premise, Kerry would have gotten us stuck in Iraq, too.
Edit: BTW, I take him at his word that he was trying to make a juvenile joke about the President and that he doesn't think the troops are dumb.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
If it doesn't need any spinning, then why are all sorts of people including the initiator of this thread spinning it.
If Mig had stared this thread by sayind "Kerry says if you don't study you could end up stuck in Iraq" this thread would have been very different.
Kerry's statement could just as easily be a reference to our nations leaders as a reference to the troops. I can think of several other interpretations of it as well. If you don't think it needs any spinning, then why don't you and the rest of the right wing stop spinning it.
Kerry said he meant it as a insult to the President not the troops. If you are going to be offended, be offended because Kerry called the President stupid but dont' be offended because Mig and others claim the Kerry said our troops were stupid. He didn't.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Kerry as president would have gotten us stuck fighting the Jihadist insurgents in New York City.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Rabbit, when Kerry tries to say he meant to say something different from what he said, then he is the one doing the spinning. Taking his statement at face value is not spinning it.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Ron can you explain to me how Migs statement is simply taking Kerry's statement at face value. If isn't. Kerry's statement has at least two possible meanings. Migs has only one. That's spinning.
And when Kerry says he meant the second interpretation, that isn't spinning its clarification.
And Stan's right. There really is no point in continuing this conversation.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
A bigger concern: Kerry hadn't really seen the speech prior to that day, and -- like other poor speech-deliverers before him, from Dan Quayle to George Bush to Nancy Pelosi -- flubbed the line in a way that wasn't immediately obvious. And when his original explanation didn't reflect (for obvious reasons) his unfamiliarity with the "off-the-cuff" scripted joke he was supposed to be delivering, people just blinked at his mention of a "joke" and wondered what he was really supposed to be saying.
The lesson here is that people should write their own speeches, and never script jokes unless they're professional comedians.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I have been wondering, what was it that Kerry actually meant to say? If he misspoke, then let's see how it should have been said. I do not see any minor way to tweak what he said and come up with what he claims he meant to say.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
His people are saying that his writers had scripted a joke that was actually meant to imply that Bush, as a consequence of poor education, got us stuck in Iraq. Which is still in poor taste. And Kerry, seeing the joke, couldn't quite make sense of it and mentally reparsed it into something that wound up being insulting to the wrong person.
Which is why people who aren't comedians shouldn't ever script jokes, and why politicians should write their own speeches.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Kerry as president would have gotten us stuck fighting the Jihadist insurgents in New York City.
Seriously, why do people say things like this?
You think that a theoretical President Kerry would have somehow weakened our defenses to the point where Al Qaeda could wander over and brandish automatic weapons in Times Square?
I question the honesty of anyone who makes statements like that. It's hyperbole, and it's just plain ridiculous.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I'm glad he apologized, it was appropriate and too long in coming.
Of course, he could have seriously defused the situation by doing that right out of the gate instead of saying "I will apologize to no one" then turning around and saying "I'm sorry the next day," now he just looks like he caved under political pressure and that makes a lot of people question the sincerity of the apology.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: His people are saying that his writers had scripted a joke that was actually meant to imply that Bush, as a consequence of poor education, got us stuck in Iraq. Which is still in poor taste. And Kerry, seeing the joke, couldn't quite make sense of it and mentally reparsed it into something that wound up being insulting to the wrong person.
Which is why people who aren't comedians shouldn't ever script jokes, and why politicians should write their own speeches.
]
That's how I heard it when it was played on the news this morning. I was surprised. I expected it to be about underprivledge folks having limited choices and ending up in the army. When I heard it, it seemed clearly a dig at Bush. One that was stupid to make, one that was even more stupid to screw up in the way he did.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I think, in the first few hours, he didn't realize that what he said could really be construed the way republicans construed it, since it was quite obvious from context ( to people who don't automatically want to think the worst of him, and who know more about him then what Bush/Rove want us to think about Kerry) that he was TRYING to attack the president, not the troops.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I have been wondering, what was it that Kerry actually meant to say? If he misspoke, then let's see how it should have been said. I do not see any minor way to tweak what he said and come up with what he claims he meant to say.
quote:...Mr. Kerry explained that he botched a joke that his aides said had been prepared as follows: “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. Just ask President Bush.”
I really don't think there's anything more to read into this. Kerry screwed up, Democrats everywhere cringed, end of story.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote: . . .the patented GOP sanctimonious "demand for an apology" . . .
* First, you have to be a phony hypocritical Republican. Democrats can never pull this off. * Second, you have to choose a comment that isn't particularly heinous or is vaguely worded. You want the comment to not be particularly bad, for reasons that become obvious when you get to the endgame. * Third, being desperate to do your bidding because they've been a little bit harsh and are eager to get back in your good graces, you give the media tons of footage and sound-bites to work with. * Fourth you pump the story as hard as you can by demanding that other Democrats distance themselves from the remarks, which they begin to do slowly at first then pile on like a litter of puppies. * Fifth, you wear down the perpetrator (who has, remember, done nothing really wrong) until you get him to apologise.
And then after all this is said and done, you call all Democrats <expletive--trans. weaklings> because they aren't stand-up guys. After all, they just bowed and scraped and apologised for a trivial comment they had no need to apologise for. Who can trust such weaklings to run the government?
posted
Specifically, I don't agree that individuals working within the system are "at best ineffectual."
Of course they are ineffectual. The current system gives no power to anyone who might know what they are doing, such as people who actually come into contact with students. Schools in the United States are theoretically very democratic, being controlled by an uneasy alliance of elected school boards, elected politicians and people appointed by elected politicians. What this means is that schools are in control of political factions. Generally these factions handle any issues that arise by ignoring them. Far worse is when they try to do something. School board members answer to local prejudices, Democratic politicians answer to teachers’ unions and the politically correct, while Republican Congressmen answer to “God gave us guns to shoot Homosexuals” crowd. Teachers and students are generally left out of the picture.
There is a teacher shortage in this country because, in this country, teachers are treated like dirt. The fact that there are so many good teachers is a credit to their willingness to do a thankless job. And there are far fewer good teachers than there are classes to be taught.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
For some reason this thread suddenly reminds me of a sketch on Saturday Night Live last week where a guy playing Howard Dean is being interviewed.
Interviewer: The public now favors the Democrats on just about every issue. *Even* national defense.
Dean: (laughs) I know Chris, it's crazy. We can't be trusted on National Defense.
Interviewer: When asked which party they trusted to lower taxes, the public said -- the Democrats.
Dean: If there's one thing we've tried to make absolutely clear, it's that we're going to raise your taxes. We need that money for wasteful government programs.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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That reminds me of a story my high school AP English teacher told my class. He was dating a women who had really long fingernails, and was a concert pianist.
He loved to hear her play, but said the noise her nails made on the keys was irritating to an unbearable degree, so he told her she had to cut them, which she did. As soon as she did, he dumped her because he said she shouldn't have just caved when he told her to do something. We asked if he would have stayed with her, had she said no to him. He said of course not, then I'd be stuck with hearing her nails on the keys all day.
- - - -
I seriously wonder what is going through the heads of voters right now. Are they really hearing Kerry speak (do they even care?) and saying "You know, I was going to vote for so and so, a Democrat, but after hearing Kerry diss the troops like that, I really think I should vote for the Republicans just to be sure. After all, despite their mess in Iraq, they at least support the troops."
The best thing Kerry could have done was to IMMEDIATELY apologize and then go on the offensive. "I'm sorry for what I said, and for any pain it has caused the families of men and women in the armed services. I deeply regret that the good fighting men and women of this country were dragged into this debacle. But since we're on the subject, I might ask Republicans and Bush especially where his apology is for the lack of armor our troops have been stuck with during the prosecution of this war, and about his failed policy that got us here to begin with."
Then he pulls out an old campaign favorite from 2004, modified: "I apologize, for the wounds my words might have caused, but they are nothihg compared to the wounds caused by the current administration. My words don't kill, for that you have to look at the guy on top."
- - -
If you want to talk about gaffes, look at the Montana Senate race. The Republican there, said that of course the President wasn't going to tell anyone the plan for Iraq, why? Because the Democrats would screw it up. They'd go and blab the plan to the terrorists, and we'd lose. So apparently the Republican defense to the Democratic criticisms of war mishandling is that they have a secret plan to save Iraq, but won't tell anyone for fear of Democrats blabbing it to the enemy.
Nice.
And if you want to talk about a liberal media running amok...Why hasn't this story been quashed? I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm a liberal media guy in charge of what goes on the air, I'm going to make sure that this Kerry thing dies hard and fast, and not giving free air time to the Republicans 24 hours a day, not when a Republican in TN basically called Harold Ford Jr. a whore monger, among other things, and George Allen in VA is throwing mud about racey sex passages in Webb's book (which he defended nicely by attacking Lynne Cheney), or Conrady Burns in Montana spewing crap about the 'Secret Republican plan in Iraq.' Republicans are saying stupid crap left and right, but the media is focused on Kerry, which will surely, because we live in a country of ridiculous stupidity, give Republicans a small bump in the polls, which is as good as 10 points, when half these races are running neck and neck.
Where's my liberal media?! They aren't doing their jobs!
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I haven't been keeping a close eye on that election. But it looks like the Dem there is mostly playing up his grass roots appeal, and calling Burns a washington insider.
Burns is trying to turn that into a good thing, by saying his position in the party and in Washington is what will guarantee good things for Montana when the time comes.
But he seems prone to making stupid gaffes, like the whole secret Iraq plan thing. I think to be honest, he's been away from home too long, and he's going to be replaced by a guy who looks and acts like he just hopped off a tractor, which is what Montana wants at the moment.
I think it speaks to a larger issue though: The wild West is up for grabs again. Democrats know that they need to expand their base beyond the rooted northeast and scattered midwest, and the pacific west. They need to either crack the Bible Belt, or the west. Montana, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. These are states the Democratic party is serious about retaking, and it looks like they might take a lot of House, Gubanatorial, and State Legislature seats there.
The best thing the Democrats could do in the next two years to show that they are serious about the West is to have the Dem. Nominating Convention in Denver. I'd say Las Vegas, but I don't like the message that would send. Phoenix is a good alternative. But somewhere out west, and not in a bastion of liberalism that they already know is locked up. It's time to spread out, and let small town and western citizens know that there are democrats among them, and we aren't just in the east or extreme west.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: I seriously wonder what is going through the heads of voters right now. Are they really hearing Kerry speak (do they even care?) and saying "You know, I was going to vote for so and so, a Democrat, but after hearing Kerry diss the troops like that, I really think I should vote for the Republicans just to be sure. After all, despite their mess in Iraq, they at least support the troops."
After responding to the similar comment you made yesterday, I've thought about it a bit. I don't think that your tongue-in-cheek suggestion of getting voters to change their mind is the purpose of the last minute frenzies. I think it's simply an attempt to motivate their bases to get out and vote. Throw the other party's (negatively spun) actions in your face right before elections as a scare tactic to get otherwise apathetic people out to vote. At least that's the best reason I can come up with for both sides to do it.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
He's... Kind of a nut. But I don't want to get too much into that. He's been behind in the polls, and the vibe I get is that the people of Montana (at least here in Helena) are tired of his antics.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Kerry apologizes after intense pressure from his own party. Couldn't see the need on his own? He does it in writing? Guess he couldn’t keep a straight face and do it in person.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
As I said earlier, pretty sure he didn't realize his comments could be misconstrued so badly, since anyone who knows anything about kerry would realize he'd never make the remarks that republicans would like you to think he made.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: I was willing to seriously believe that Kerry meant to say that our soldiers were (not all, but largely) in the military because they were poor and uneducated, because that's a standard Democrat talking point now. ...
Woah, since when is that one of our talking points? Was I not at the meeting where this was discussed?
The Democratic Party has to approve talking points in meetings? If this is true, please tell us more.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I should have said: my point wasn't a serious one. It was linked to a discussion about Virginia politicians and people's cynicism.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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You're right. Energizing their own base is probably more important at this point than changing minds. But the timing sucks. The majority of people make of their minds in the last 1-2 weeks before the election, and the largest of that group are the so called "Security Moms." I think Kerry's gaffe will be off the front pages by the weekend, and whatever rises up to replace it will probably be the last things on their minds. But I have to wonder if this will really energize Republicans who weren't going to vote to begin with. Look at why they aren't voting, or why they are voting for Democrats, and I don't think Kerry's gaffe really negates those things.
Will B -
Heh. Still, I was wondering when it became 'common knowledge' that a Democratic talking point was that the military is full of dumb poor kids. I haven't heard that, except when it is RARELY talked about that teens in poverty stricken areas don't have enough chances to get out of their situation, and the military often presents the best chance, and talk about military recruitment tactics against the poor.
Both are valid points, but I don't ever remember it being a major point to phrase it that the military is full of stupid or poor kids.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Kerry as president would have gotten us stuck fighting the Jihadist insurgents in New York City.
And if Al Gore was elected in 2000, 9/11 never would have happened.
Seriously, these unfounded, extremely broad what-ifs don't carry any weight. Saying it was not useful, so it was probably better left unsaid.
Posts: 1357 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Kerry as president would have gotten us stuck fighting the Jihadist insurgents in New York City.
And if Al Gore was elected in 2000, 9/11 never would have happened.
Seriously, these unfounded, extremely broad what-ifs don't carry any weight. Saying it was not useful, so it was probably better left unsaid.
If only FDR had had the common decency to die in his first term, we would have been able to mop up Iraq in a month, and gasoline would still cost under a dollar, and I would have a pony.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
It would be a pink pony and I would name her florence!
Or buttercup. It depends on if LBJ would have had the common decency to artificially extend his lifespan so he could cold-cock Lucas and keep the Star Wars prequel from being terrible.
Good alternate-history star wars prequel being good = buttercup.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Still, I was wondering when it became 'common knowledge' that a Democratic talking point was that the military is full of dumb poor kids.
As you know, I never said anything about "kids" being "dumb" (or "stupid," as you said later).
I'll suppose "Heh" mean "I was just making that up about discussing talking points at party meetings."
--
It's an interesting rhetorical technique, paraphrasing the other party's words to make them something neither would agree with. It's a powerful way of changing the subject.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I think you took that a little too sensitively Will.
First of all the "Heh" was because I thought you were taking a stab at Democrats for saying a lot of 'off message' stupid gaffes that get them in trouble, and I was chuckling because it was funny. Sorry.
Second, you said "uneducated," and I don't think it is dishonest to change uneducated to "dumb" for the purposes of this discussion. If it is, then sorry.
I wasn't trying to start something with you.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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But I wanna see florence, or buttercup.
