Limitless, shameless, cravenness

November 1, 2006

I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why the John Kerry flap is bothering me so much.

Perhaps it’s the unjustified media attention. The fact that Kerry missed a word in a joke and subsequently apologized has, for no apparent reason, rocked the political world and is generating near-blanket coverage on the news networks. Some media personalities are condemning Kerry, even after they learned that he simply misspoke. Others are blasting Kerry for failing to apologize, even after he’d already apologized.

Perhaps it’s the wholesale lack of perspective. Kerry, a decorated war hero, is not only being smeared (again) as anti-military, but far more important news stories are being blown off entirely so the nation can rehash one person missing one word in one joke.

Perhaps it’s because Democratic candidates are feeding the story by denouncing Kerry for saying something he didn’t even mean.

Or perhaps it’s because the “controversy” has led RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman to send out emails like this one.

Listen closely this election season and you’ll hear the truth about what Democrats represent.

Monday, failed Presidential candidate John Kerry brazenly insulted the brave American men and women serving in our military. At a campaign stop for Democrats in California, Kerry told students that “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. If you don’t you get stuck in Iraq.”

In Kerry’s cocoon of privilege, those who serve in our military are failures who never did their homework or “made an effort to be smart.” … John Kerry is dead wrong. Our troops who put their lives on the line represent the very best of America.

“Cocoon of privilege.” The RNC is playing class warfare now? On behalf of the multi-millionaires whose tax cuts are sacrosanct?

Or how about “brazenly insulted.” Yes, John Kerry intentionally went to a public forum, with a prepared text, and went out of his way to criticize U.S. troops. That’s really what the line advanced by the right and the media comes down to — Kerry deserves condemnation because, they think, he meant to besmirch men and women in uniform.

I suppose it’s to be expected from a dishonest, dishonorable hack like Ken Mehlman, but how on earth can anyone other than Fox News buy into such transparent nonsense? Honestly, what is more insulting to the troops today, a word missing in Kerry’s joke about the president or leaving a U.S. serviceman behind for the Mahdi Army in Iraq?

Salon’s Tim Grieve captured the landscape nicely.

The important question now, of course, is what happens next. Can the Democrats get the media focused back on the issues that matter to Americans — issues on which the voters trust Democrats more — or will the Republicans succeed in making Kerry a 24/7 poster boy for the “blame America first crowd”? Ultimately, that probably turns on whether voters have finally taken to heart the lessons of the last three and half years: That the people who talk the loudest about “supporting the troops” are the same ones who sent more than 2,800 of them to their deaths in a pointless war that won’t end soon or well.

The Democrats need this election to be about that war. The Republicans need it to be about something else — anything else — and what they’ve got at the moment are Kerry’s words. It’s not much of a counterpunch: Five seconds of rhetorical blunder vs. a three-and-a-half-year-old war that has cost more than $300 billion and claimed tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives. The Republicans know they can’t win that fight, and that’s why they’re working hard to transform Kerry’s words into something more sweeping: Democrats secretly hold our troops in contempt, and Kerry just let the cat out of the bag.

I find it impossible to understand how anyone could fall for such a ridiculous scam, but the GOP is desperate — and this is all they’ve got.

To 95% of Americans, John Kerry is that tall guy who ran for President last time and lost.

That’s it. Some D’s are reacting emotionally because of Kerry’s symbolic stature, taking this personally, and because of memories of ’04 and some less than stellar news cycles due to Kerry’s occasional message mishaps. We have to get over that…hell, there were even more painful and multiple message bombs by Gore in 2000.

But Kerry recovered well enough on this one. The country now sees an Iraq distraction for what it is.

  • The best line I read today on the subject is from the commondreams website:

    “Kerry didn’t insult the troops – he insulted the larger truth. We’re not stuck in Iraq because Bush didn’t apply himself in college. We’re stuck for reasons that only Bush knows and that only Bush under oath should be forced to tell us.”

    Until we have an opposition party whose leaders can call a spade a spade we will continually get more and more Dick Cheneys.

  • Kerry gave them a tiny opening, but that was all they needed. Remember what they did in the days following Paul Wellstone’s funeral? These guys are amazingly good at manufacturing outrage.

  • It’s horseshit pure and simple. And while it’s one thing for the GOP to try to gin up their base as a result of what seem to be pretty damned stupid comments – particularly with the nasty comments that ass-hole in chief Dick Cheney has put out – the media going along with it is even more bullshit. Is this really going to be the story for the next six days? This stupid comment, as opposed to the crapitude that has become the war in Iraq, and everything else they’re doing wrong? If it is, and if voters are swayed by it, well, then we really do deserve this shithole of a government.

  • I suppose it’s to be expected from a dishonest, dishonorable hack like Ken Mehlman…

    I could almost respect someone like Mehlman if he actually *believed* that Kerry insulted the troops and could not be persuaded otherwise. What’s unpardonable is that Mehlman *knows* that there is nothing to this, but he’s fanning the flames anyway. He needs people to believe it, even though he knows better.

  • I don’t know, really. The whole thing sort of smells like Kerry got just a bit too confident in his new-found status as a tough-talking, bad-ass Democrat (where was that for us in 2004, John??!!), and accidentally slipped with this comment.

    I like Kerry, especially the new and improved Kerry, and I don’t think his intention was to insult the troops, nor to make it out that they’re all uneducated buffoons who had no other place to go — although, admittedly, with the armed forces nowadays acting as a place to go if you can’t get into college, that wouldn’t be wrong about ALL of our troops. The line that Kerry’s people have put out that he was SUPPOSED to have said seems like too much of a post-oops clean up job that it’s coming off as political hackery.

    All Kerry has to do is keep pushing his very distinguished history of supporting the troops, his own history of BEING a troop (something tough guy Bush has NEVER been), and do all he can to turn the focus of the media on to the real tragedy in this whole mess, the war itself. Let’s hope the American people aren’t so stupid that this issue becomes a reason to suddenly back to GOP again.

  • That’s the Noise Machine in action, where facts or fictions do not matter.

    Political journalists are lazy and “he said, she said” story is so much easier to report than, say, the debacle in Iraq. So, when Mehlman opens his clapper they all go “cool, story already written, what about lunch ?”.

  • I’ll see the Republican fake outrage and double it.

    “If you don’t you get stuck in Iraq” – John Kerry said that George W. Bush and American troops are “stuck” in Iraq? Nothing could be further from the truth. American troops, just like the Bush Administration, have *chosen* to go to Iraq, to stop the spread of WMD, to inspire peace and democracy in the Middle East, and to make the world a safer place. Only a liberal Democrat like John Kerry would say they’ve become “stuck” there – not at a time when we can’t find enough troops to send over there, as we’ve added thousands to the 138,000 in Iraq earlier this year, not at a time when schools and hospitals are being rebuilt at a staggering rate and repainted time and time again, to cover up bullet holes and bloodstains from medical treatment, such as involuntary trepanation and assisted suicide and bondage role-playing, which seem like typical Democratic activities to us. “Stuck” in Iraq, Senator Kerry? We should all be so lucky as to be “stuck” in a country with such hope and potential. Vote Republican to make sure we stay there forever!”

  • Don’t lose perspective. Does anyone really think Kerry’s comment is going to change anyone’s vote? Do you think it’s going to inspire anybody to vote (for EITHER side) who wouldn’t have bothered to go to the polls otherwise?

    When each of us steps into the voting booth– or when we face the touch screen, or whatever –Kerry’s words aren’t going to mean diddly.

  • The only thing Kerry has to apologize for is that the morons Bush surrounds himself with are too fucking dumb to understand that it was a shot at their boss’ overwhelming lack of intelligence and incompetence that is readily apparent everytime he opens his mouth!

  • What bothers me the most about this “scandal” is how gives us a glimpse behind the curtain on the MSM every time a controversy free, ordinary, every day campaign stop becomes the leading story on every single channel at the snap of the GOP fingers. It’s like every news organization in the country gets their press release that says, “THIS is now topic A of the political conversation for the next two months, starting this evening. GET TO WORK.”

    Every political journalist, all the way down to the sensible, middle-of-the road Democrats know what to do when they get their marching orders.

  • Here in the Show-Me State, the state GOP demanded — DEMANDED — that Claire McCaskill renounce Kerry’s statements.

    My thought was, “Why?” It has nothing to do with her or even Jim (no)Talent — it’s a two-year-old pissing match between some Massachusetts moron and an idiot from Texas. Period.

    I will say, however, that if John Kerry ever tries to make a joke in public again, someone should kick him in the nuts. The man is simply not funny. And I know funny.

    🙂

  • So many facets to this story — even though it is obviouly a non-story.

    Here’s one: the GOP has had unlimited power for six years, and can campaign on any subject it wants. So, is THIS all they’ve got? They have no other compelling narrative, no track record of success, no vision for a better and more united country, so of course all they can do is manufacture stuff like this.

    Another angle, as Kerry pointed out yesterday, is that the GOP phony outrage is a an abuse of the troops.

  • And by the way, every one of you dorks who says Kerry “brought this on himself” are part of the problem. Bush offers a verbal gem every day that could be run into the ground of the MSM had any intention of balancing their shallowness across the political spectrum. There is no human being alive that can keep the GOP from making stuff up and the press running with it. The only thing Democrats can do is making them suffer for their dishonesty by holding them accountable, and giving as good as we get.

  • Perhaps the reason it bothers you so much is how little effort it takes to get a right-wing talking point to completely consume the news cycle and how difficult it is for Democrats to get any attention at all. When the media leans to the right to please the GOP in power, we all lose. Except for GOP. It’s so easy it almost makes me wish I was immoral and debased so I could become a successful GOP hack – just to be successful.

    Almost, I say. I value my soul far too much.

  • Are you kidding me?

    John Kerry messes up one line (yes, he’s mangled a few lines before) and gets heat for it. But Bush has AN ENTIRE BOOK of them, and they’re even known as “Bushisms”!

    Someone with some time should go through some other pol’s recent speeches to catalog their botched lines. It could become a parlor game – who can find the most unintentionally stupid lines out there. To make things more difficult, no using George Bush or Cynthia McKinney.

    Incidentally, I though Kerry’s press conference yesterday was great, and I think dems should take turns rebutting outrageous GOP claims with equally intense responses.

  • Partly the news orgs suffer from the tragedy of the commons. If they don’t run with the story somebody else will. They’re competitors just like the Republicans are competing agains the Dems.

    Kerry’s blooper feeds into the meme that he’s anti-troops and intended to wake up the base of angry white males that are still holding grudges about Vietnam. One friend sent me one of those phony emails about Hillary Clinton so I sent him back the rebuttal to it. His response. “Yeah but she’s still a bitch.”

  • CB,

    I hear ya… It’s really irking me, too.

    And my ire is most focused on the press who is allowing this complete non-story to gain traction.

    As I said in a post on my own blog today:

    “…in all fairness, don’t you remember the outrage when Bush said “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we?”

    No? Neither do I. Oy vez mir.”

    I fail to see how this Kerry thing is any different than the countless number of Bushisms.

  • I was thinking about this this morning while I was fuming at CNBC giving Tony Snow a platform to launch an anti-Kerry tirade. But the simple reason is the MSM is addicted to “conflict”. It’s much more fun and dramatic to have a “he said she said” controversy – even if it has to be ginned up and is totally artificial – than to actually talk about issues and serious stuff like war or the fact that there’s an election next week.
    It’s all about drama and conflict.

  • I’ve been introspective about my anger on this, too. It’s how I feel when I, myself, have said something dumb or stupid and others are getting me into trouble that I believe I don’t deserve. There’s no good way out, except for dems other than Kerry to deliver a blistering counter-attack. I’d like to see it come from Max Cleland or Charlie Rangel, and for it to reveal that these attacks on former soldiers with combat experience are coming from people who lack it and who, last night, presumably ordered our soldiers to abandon an American soldier to the Mahdi Army.

  • Hold on. Before you start labeling people as ‘dorks’ or worse, let’s remember one thing: Bush is NOT a Democrat. Kerry is, so when he goes out there and sticks his foot in his mouth and utters some dumbassery, I will get mad, especially when it’s a few days before the election.

    I KNOW what he meant to say, but everyone here should know that in politics and media it’s not what you meant but what you actually say. Everyone here should know the media is going to be more critical of Democrats. Kerry should know these things and not present a situation to them a few days before an election that:

    1. Makes Democrats looks stupid and unpatriotic.
    2. Takes the media off message.
    3. Allows the GOP to leverage their skills on the offensive and rally their base.

    We had them against the ropes and we needed a knockout punch, instead, Kerry feinted and allowed them to regain their footing.

    I’ve said it before and since he’s got that sparkle in is eye, I’m sure I’ll say it again. Kerry was a lousy candidate in the first place and now he’s damaged goods. I’ll be damned if I support him again and the Democratic party would be wise not to present that choice to the voters in 2008.

  • I’m with those who see this as no big deal and republican outrage as manufactured. On the subject of apologies, however, I don’t think Kerry did apologize — at least not to anyone in uniform. Instead, he said he was sorry for botching a joke.

    KERRY: I did, I said it was a botched joke, of course I’m sorry about a botched joke. You think I love botched jokes?

  • I’m 100% with doubtful on this. Kerry’s intentions don’t count for shit (and he was a terrible, terrible candidate; thank you sooooooooo much, Iowa Dems [and ABC News for leaking the mismiked Dean Scream]).

    The “optics” on Kerry’s half-assed and bungled joke are AWFUL, and we need to simply acknowledge that. And it’s also a case of the quote looking much, much worse in print than Kerry’s fumbled delievry makes it sound on tape.

    Plus, it was a moronic idea to begin with: first of all, Kerry can’t deliver a joke to save his life; second, the Dems’ attack line shouldn’t be on Bush’s intelligence, but on his incompetence (yes, I know they’re related, but the joke even delivered pristinely is still off-message).

    And of all the things for Kerry to get his hackles up about and to finally mount a counterproductive counterattack on? He may well be a decent man, and he may well have made an excellent president (though I doubt that more and more, given his inability to control his message in the public sphere and to fight effectively against the GOP attack machine, which are essential components of successfully administering the office in this day and age) — but he’s simply an awful figurehead and public speaker.

  • All that has to happen is for the liberal/progressive voice to acknowledge “the profound clarity of Kerry’s unintentional prophesy.”

    C’mon, people; think Viet Nam here. Think Selective Service. Think “letters that begin with the word ‘greetings’.”

    Where do you think the first batch of inductees are going to come from?

    Same place as the last time—kids that did poorly in school, and didn’t have the “cocoon of privilege” to shield them from a one-way ticket to a rice paddy in the Mekong. The only “cocoon” I see is the one that the little tail-tucking, yellow-bellied members of this current American administration have held oh-so-dearly for too many years now.

    Stop the hand-wringing. Stop the whining (y’all are starting to sound like Mike D’Whine and Rick Sanitorium). Take this pop-gun away from the GOP—right now—and turn it on THEM. Put THEM on the defensive. Make THEM backpeddle.

    And use that pop-gun like a Howitzer….

  • I really think that Kerry should now drop a shiteload of cash, together with the DCCC and DSCC, and put out some quick ads that make the best out of the situation. For instance, an ad that makes the point that all hell is breaking out in Iraq and elsewhere, and all the scandals withing the GOP and its elected membership, and all the administration can do is attack a war hero for a misstatement. Do it in a rough and belittling fashion. Use the quotes by Snow and Bush and Cheney, and then use that as a platform to note that these wastes of human flesh should be more concerned with the problems they have created that are costing or troops their lives and limbs. Make it hard hitting, quick and simple. Kerry should also drop a shiteload more cash to the ground games of many of the closely contested races.

  • “…everyone here should know that in politics and media it’s not what you meant but what you actually say.” – doubtful

    Really, when do we get to start holding Boy George II to that standard?

  • Really, when do we get to start holding Boy George II to that standard?

    When he becomes a Democrat.

  • Actually, I meant the media will at that point. IWe already hold him to that standard every day, and I hope for a Congress that will in January. Which is why I’m all the more made that Kerry would rally the GOP base a week ahead of one of the most important elections in US history.

  • The faux outrage followed by demands for Kerry to apologize fromt the likes of T. Snow are nothing more than a BushCo effort to reestablish Dear Leader as the alpha male. It is reminicient of their demands to Saddam to let the inspectors in. Well, we know how well that worked out. The best defense-sorry Think Progress which is currently hyping the Kerry “apology”-is to stand firm against the onslaught. Anything less is a victory for Dear Leader.

    Those of you who are blaming Kerry for this are off target. Anyone who faces BushCo would eventual suffer the same fate. This is no time to go weak-kneed.

  • George Bush should apologize for saying “the terrorists will not stop trying to destroy America and neither will we.” He in fact has done a great job destroying America.

    All the blogs should be writing about how US troops left Sadr City leaving one of their soldiers behind, the kidnapped one they were looking for. Isn’t this denigrating soldiers?

  • ml’s suggestion would be a great close for the ads I suggest above. Slam them now, and often. Time to fight back. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Snow and Co should be the ones apologizing for placing our troops under the order of a foreign country’s leader AND for leaving one of our own behind in doing so.

  • re: my own #22

    According to a statement just read on CNN, Kerry finally apologized to the troops (rather than for botching a joke). Why he didn’t do that yesterday…

  • I agree with #13 that if this is the best they’ve got, the Republicans are in bad shape. However, it’s a mistake to downplay the seriousness of even a careless remark in this kind of political climate, this close to a pivotal election. John Kerry should have either made sure he knew exactly what he was saying, or kept his mouth shut. The Democrats were basically lying low, letting the Republican juggernaut collapse upon itself and gore itself to pieces, and now his stupid tongue-flub has forced the whole party on the defensive. It would have been far, far better if it had never happened, and it didn’t need to happen – it was completely preventable.

    Still, it’s probably true that few will change their vote simply on this non-issue. All I’m suggesting is that when you’re going up against a party that is expert at beating people up, handing them a stout stick looks really, really stupid.

  • The upside to all this is that any Democrat can get press right now if he wants to talk about the Kerry botch. He can use that to attack Bush in the context of denying the joke’s validity. It’s a chance to be the patriot and the attacker. I wouldn’t even say who said the joke. I’d just say someone misspoke and said that and the candidate STRONGLY rejects that joke. At least people are listening.

  • The text of Kerry’s apology is . This was a huge mistake. I doubt that it will stop BushCo from continuing on this line. They will find a new way to exploit it. here

  • It’s a pity that Kerry and the Democrats haven’t used this incident to go right at the Bush “support the troops” hypocrisy. Pile on. There are numerous examples of the administration quietly cutting funds for military hospitals, dependents’ rights, and military infrastructure. These disgraceful acts have been reported, but are buried among fluff pieces. Muffing a joke is one thing. Bankrupting combat veterans is another.

  • Obviously, Michael J. Fox is a horrible spokesman for stem cell research. He can’t stop stepping in it with his Parkinson’s symptoms. This kind of clumsiness is why he made a terrible actor, and had to leave the show. When will these organizations provide us with better spokespeople?

  • Here in the Show-Me State, the state GOP demanded — DEMANDED — that Claire McCaskill renounce Kerry’s statements.

    My thought was, “Why?” It has nothing to do with her or even Jim (no)Talent — it’s a two-year-old pissing match between some Massachusetts moron and an idiot from Texas. Period.

    I also saw the Missouri GOP demanding Claire renounce Kerry, although my response was “Go f*** yourselves.” When Talent and other Republicans apologize for Limbaugh’s smearing of Michael J. Fox and the President claiming a vote for Democrats is a vote for terrorist victory, we’ll talk.

    Maybe Dems just need to let Kerry twist in the wind a bit on this. He doesn’t represent anyone besides the state of Massachusetts nor is he a party leader. He certainly isn’t on the Missouri ballot. Maybe the simple phrase “John Kerry speaks for himself” needs to come into vogue in the next two weeks.

  • Hereis more on how not to handle the situation.

    With Kerry’s remarks Monday still reverberating, Republicans renewed their attacks on him today, and some Democrats sought to distance themselves from the party’s former standard-bearer. Kerry announced he would return to Washington from campaigning on behalf of fellow Democrats, canceling appearances in Minnesota and Pennsylvania today and in Iowa tomorrow.

    Kerry should not be crawling under a rock. This looks weak.

  • Dale (and others), as anyone who has to sit through my posts with any frequency around here knows, I have hardly “bought into the Repugnant Noise Machine.” I long ago bought into the “Kerry’s a clueless campaigner whose a little short on candlepower” machine, however. He has now “responded” – what – 4 times, or in 4 parts? That (a) gives the story legs, (b) makes the first 3 responses look insincere (“I refused to apologize for it before I apologized for it”), and (c) shows that he still has no idea how to deal with messaging. His release of the full text of his prepared comments (response #2) and his apology to the troops (the latest piece) should have all been part of the immediate response.

    Have we really gotten so like BushCo that we need the protection of a bubble, of a “Kerry’s one of us so he can’t be wrong” approach?

    Kerry made his own bed. Throw him overboard to save the living candidates.

    Is the media fair on this issue? Of course not. Are the Rethugs fair? If they were, we wouldn’t call them Rethugs. But this has been the case for at least 6 years, arguably longer. We can bitch about the current rules of the game, which so far has failed to change them, or we can learn to be better than anyone expected at playing by them, no matter how unfair. Kerry failed to learn how to play by them. Calling those of us who see this “dorks” or “weak kneed” or suggesting we’re part of the problem or have bought into the Noise Machine sounds like a suggestion we should all become kool-aid drinkers. Funny, I started coming here because no kool-aid was required. I’d like to think we can maintain one kool-aid free party on our two-party system.

  • Actually, even as mis-stated, I don’t see a damn problem with Kerry’s statement as said. After all, there ain’t too many ivy leaguers signing up to go to Iraq.

    Hell, why apologize? Just claim the mis-statement as his own. The privileged don’t have any part in this war, other than their stock portfolios. It’s pretty much the lower-educated people (smart or not) who are actually fighting.

    Damn, why the hell not bring class warfare into this? This rich oil folks are the ones who put us into Iraq. Almost every time I see a photo of another dead Soldier’s house, it’s a run-of-the-mill middle-class or less of a property.

    Why the F*&k isn’t this a legitimate point for someone to bring up?

  • Why worry? I’m with Billmon. If this stupidity loses the election, Americans WANTED it to. They LIKE the current situation but were just too ashamed to admit it.
    If that’s the case, the hell with them. Things will continue to get worse at an ever faster clip until it touches their own lives. Then they’ll change.

  • If only it was someone besides Michael J. Fox! Then the GOP wouldn’t have lied about him! When will the Democrats learn that they need to put up candidates that the GOP won’t attack? We need to keep trying to find someone they won’t lie about! When will we learn?

  • Why is it that when a Democrat flubs a line, the media goes into a feeding frenzy? But Bush? That clown risks a concussion every time he goes from a noun to the verb, but never a word from our liberal media.

  • If you had actually read or listened to the speech you wouldn’t be so angry.

    Instead of huffing and puffing at the bad jokes of a senator, why not get mad for a good reason? What about the “Commander in Chief” who sent our good soldiers to fight good Iraqis for no reason? The government that rushed them into war without a just cause, without a good plan. How many good people, Iraqi and American, have died while you wrote this foolish, misguided diatribe against a senator who was elected president yet conceded victory?

  • I know its late and chances are this post has already run its cycle but damnit if my fingers don’t twitch this out I won’t be able to stop the shaking… Yeah, Kerry goofed. People without a sense of humor have no business pretending like they have one. Correction: people without the ability to speak off the cuff should not read, or try to remember, prepared jokes. I suspect Kerry has a fine sense of humor in private but in the confines of public engagement he wears his like a wig. Everybody knows he’s faking it.

    And now he’s apologized. The right thing to do? Perhaps, perhaps not (if not, acknowledging the misstatement is certainly the right tack.) But the media…. the reaction…. the indignation…. so offended…. so defensive…. and all I can think is: BUSH SHOULD APOLOGIZE. For starting this disastrous war, for sending our troops into the concave morass of malignant intentions, for failing to properly equip them, for cutting funding for their medical care and research, for using slash’n’burn diplomacy. Bush is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the deaths of the close to 3,000 Americans, more before too long, and the life-altering injuries of tens of thousands of others, and for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s. The corruption, the greed, the profiteering, the waste, the shame, the death. Where are the calls for Bush to apologize? Who huffs and flutters their disgust at his bastardized rhetoric?

    There is blood on Bush’s hands. He holds them to his face to cover his eyes and in so doing he hides the blood from us and from himself. He will rot in whatever hell he believes in. For once, I hope it exists.

  • Why all the focus on kerry? Well, because he’s expressed interest in running for president again and well, perhaps because he has a long history of shaming his brethren in the armed forces.

    From 1972: “I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown,” Kerry wrote. “We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply ‘doing its job.’”

    “Equally as important, a volunteer army with our present constitutional crisis takes accountability away from the president and put the people further from control over military activities,” he wrote.

    I give John Kerry all the kudos in the world for valiantly serving this country… it’s what he’s said on the past decades that reveals his pompous, blue blood, limousine, liberal attitude that deserves much less respect.

    Cut him loose, the Dem party would be stronger for it.

  • Kerry is a jackass. A bigger jackass is Rangle. Rangle’s main qualification is surely not his brains. Rangle would do better competing in an episode of “Yo Mama” than leading the American public. He is really the s.o.b. (son of blacks).

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