"Sorry, I'm so sorry," says More Dumber
Perhaps the silver lining in the John Kerry Kerfuffle is that he has now so twisted himself up like a pretzel and so totally bleeding credibility that it will be impossible for him to run for President in 2008.
After reacting defiantly, angrily to Bush's demand that he apologize for his now "botched joke" and correctly suggested that it was the President who had to apologize for sending troops into the hopeless war in Iraq, Kerry has now...APOLOGIZED!
At least we know this is the right Kerry. The split-tongue flip-flopper we all came to love or loathe.
I can only imagine what all those soft-headed Democrats are now feeling after spending two entire news cycles defending the big lug. Can't someone just capture this guy, tie him to a windsurf board, and push him out to sea (maybe in the general direction of Calais?).
I'm convinced that Kerry's remark on Monday that the uneducated are destined to be marooned in Iraq was indeed a barb aimed at Bush and not at the troops. But just as equally dumb.
If Kerry is impyling that Bush is an ignorant fool who got sandbagged in Iraq because he understood nothing of its history, than what does it say of boobs like Kerry who voted the same dunce Prez a blank check for war???
Kerry is hopelessly tongue-tied because his core politics are so hopelessly muddled. Muddled In -- Muddled Out.
Fortunately, it seems, the Republicans are seen by voters as even more foolish than the mumbling Senator from Massachussetts. Pollster Ruy Teuxiera has some mighty predictions to make for next Tuesday... how about a Democratic gain of 31, 38, maybe even 42 new House seats.
So let's get this election done. And then make sure that Kerry's mouth is taped shut till after 2008.
November 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 am
Yes, this week, let’s keep that emphasis right where it shoud be, the Kerry Campaign of 2008(!) Can the fake impartial, supposedly objective tit for tat progressive work to serve the the Republicans any harder?
This is the sort of progressive who called BILL CLINTON “slick Willie?” Cooper’s “posistion” is a twisted pretzel of hypocrisy and illogic.
First of all, we will note the lack of the phrase, “an insult to the troops” in all this. Cooper is too embarrassed to bring up, as he always is in when defending these republican smears, what it’s supposed to be all about. As in, let’s not dwell on the Swift Boat charges (distasteful), and start talking about wheather Kerry should run on his war record……
So, Cooper tells us that a botched joke is just as bad
(dumb) as insulting the troops(!). Then, let’s highten to the extreme Kerry’s capitulation with the war. Any honest person to the left of Jim R want to take a look at that “blank check?” But, I guess you have to be right wing blogger to be given any points for a rethink on Iraq.
Kerry aplogized, and so we get the sad, predictable, trademark “gotcha” that benchmarks a true Bush enabler. I admit, I don’t know what comprised the apology, and I hardly care. I do know I have heard, according to plan, his original non
insult of the troops twisted and misrepresented three or four times in the press.
Indeed, it is left for the sane to “walk away” from this, perhaps after noting the lie at it’s core. We might also note that while Cooper signs statements that he doesn’t want to
“pick through the rubble over arguements for intervention”, he
was gung ho to reward the fruits of the Whitewater investigation with the impeachment of Bill Clinton. This, I would suggest, is an appoach to the two White Houses that rivals, in consistancy, The Fox News Channel.
November 2nd, 2006 at 6:51 am
Well, it was kind of a dumb joke even if Kerry had gotten it right. After all, Dubya’s not real sharp, but the Iraq mess is arguably the product of some very smart people. Read Wolfowitz’s biography (any version) and it’s not hard to imagine he would have been an illustrious chemist or mathematician in some other life. Cheney, I loathe. But he’s not dumb. Rummy, likewise. Condi, ditto. They didn’t knuckle down to Bush’s command to bring him Saddam’s head on a platter, wondering why they ever went to work for this dittohead. They salivated; they *all* wanted Saddam’s head on a platter. They came into office wanting it. They just needed an excuse.
Congress was certainly none too smart — it passed legislation calling for “regime change” in Iraq, and monies were disbursed under this mandate for an adventure of Ahmed Chalabi’s that had dumb-dumber-dumbest upshot: his “invasion force” of 2,000 troops, launched from Iran (!) into the Kurdish east, was dropped into the cuisinart of Saddam’s Republican Guard, then mopped up by Kurds who were sick of this U.S. “regime change” policy that did little more for them but stir the shit. It was a more shameful episode than the Bay of Pigs, but it was essentially *everybody’s* fault, so it didn’t get much partisan airing.
Gore perhaps goes to an opposite extreme of BushCo criticism, engaging in Jungian psychoanalysis. But at least there’s some gravitas about it, a little depth, rather than lame attempts at levity. Why joke anyway? People are getting bumped off by death squads. There are places where their bodies don’t get cleaned off the streets because it’s too dangerous to retrieve them. People are getting tortured before they are killed. Neighborhoods and towns are getting “ethnically cleansed” as we speak. (Indeed, a recently leaked Pentagon report called it “ethnic cleansing” outright.) “At least we got rid of Saddam” doesn’t cut it anymore, and that’s the crumpling of the last leg of the tripod that included WMD hysteria and Al Qaeda “links”. A serious political debate that takes into account how even very *smart* people can make mistakes this big would add a lot more to the discussion. The comedy might be that Bush “got us stuck in Iraq”, but the tragedy is that Iraqis are far more stuck in the mess we created than we’ll ever be.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:19 am
This Kerry bizness is far more important than Bush’s appearance on the hatemongering, drug addict’s radio hour where he made it clear that, shock of shocks, our presence in the Middle East is indeed all about oil, or his further comments claiming to be satisfied with the “progress” in Iraq and determined to keep on Michael Brown as Secretary of Defense. I’m sorry…that would be Donald Rumsfeld as SecDef.
That stuff sucked, bu let’s keep our eye on the ball. John Kerry has political bad breath. He’s snooty and smarmy and I don’t like his hairstyle, his crooked smile, his big teeth or the silly spandex suit he wears when he’s riding his bycycle. He messed up a speech and then he messed up when President Bush tried to mess him up for messing up. He’s a big dummy. I don’t like him very much. I agree with Marc that he shouldn’t run for President again. He shouldn’t even go around the country making speeches cuz he always messes them up. The guy just gets on my nerves. Like a lot. Does everyone hear me on this issue ? I’d like to hear more comments on this from others, because it’s been bugging me for a long time and I’m finally getting it off my chest.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:22 am
Oh yeah. One more thing. Windsurfing ! What’s up with that ?
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:47 am
Marc -
He explained how he messed up the joke, what he meant to say, and apologized to anyone who misinterpreted it. This doesn’t add up to disavowing his previous anger over the deliberate twisting of his words. Tempting as the pretzel-twisting and windsurfing conceits may be, they don’t really apply. This mea culpa was probably the best he could do under the idiotic circumstances. The joke was pretty dumb and Kerry is not an adept pol but I’ve got to assume that every day hundreds of politicians screw up in a similar fashion. Give some credit to the Republican machine for digging up this dross and turning it into gold. You’ve got to tip your hat to their shamelesness and to the reliable cravenness of the media.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:51 am
Yeah evets, the GOP has a slime machine and yadda yadda, but have you ever noticed that Kerry’s wife is sort of annoying and very rich ? Are you trying to make excuses for that ?
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:56 am
Also, when Kerry volunteered to serve in Vietnam (which was resume padding if you ask me), he joined the Navy, which is kinda the wimpy wing of the military. It’s not the Marines - which is what Dick Cheney would have joined if he were the joining type.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:08 am
Another thing that bugs me about Kerry is that old-school, hard-bitten, seen-everything, been-everywhere, done-it-all, no-bullshit newshounds like Chris Mathews and Joe Klein have pronounced Kerry inauthentic. If these guys are experts on anything, they’re experts on a lack of authenticity. And they’d rather have a beer with Bush than sherry with Kerry. Of course, Bush is on the wagon, which means you can’t really have a beer with him, but back when he was having beers, Chris and Joe would rather do blow…I mean drink beer with Bush, and that just says a hell of a lot about Kerry as far as I’m concerned. Also Gore. Same goes for Gore.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:20 am
You’re on fire reg. Don’t ever stop.
BTW — after the 2004 election, a friend of mine (a jounalist interestingly enough), who knew that I was a big Red Sox fan, gloatingly sent me some quotes proving that Kerry’s professed allegiance for his hometown team was all a fraud. It was painful to read and left a deep sense of betrayal — I’m just now beginning to recover.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:31 am
Reg, I’ve warned you about pulling punches. Don’t forget, when the Republicans were handing a lifetime Supreme Court Appointment to another hard rightie (make yourself comfortable, Death Penalty!), Kerry had the unmitagated gaul to issue a dessent attending a meeting in a city WHERE PEOPLE OFTEN GO SKIING. He also once said something about Nascar that when you took out some of the words and put in some diferent ones, made him look really silly.
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:18 am
It was these public comments about the hired help one day on the slopes that are always in the back of my mind about Kerry
http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/cussword.asp
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
My main concern about Kerry apologizing for taking a punch at Bush, even if it was a clumsy punch, is that he and other Democrats will pull their punches when it comes to stopping the war in Iraq–which, contrary to suggestions by Michael Turner and others in a previous thread that they will have no power to do so, is entirely doable because the election is about Iraq and they will have the people behind them. That is what is known as political capital, and if Bush can spend it so can the Democrats. Just don’t on Kerry to lead the charge. It would indeed be tragic if the people were ready and the leaders were not.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Don’t count on Kerry to lead the charge, I meant to say.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Marc,
it`s too soon for the cigar???
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
my english was terrible. Sorry.
I think that is still too soon to light the victory cigar, still 5 days to go and i don`t really the pools and the voting machine…
It will still a long battle.
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:03 pm
He finally had to apologize to the troops lest they take the translation the way the propagandists spun it.
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Democrats lead GOP by 19 points in the latest “generic” poll in the NYT. I say 42 and 7.
Now as to Kerry. Of course he made a mistake. It was a lame joke and he botched the ending. But’s here’s his mistake. If you read the whole quote - including the intro joke there can be no doubt who he meant. But that got cut out as the GOP noise machine knew it would by a “Gotcha” media. Particularly cable news, and not just FOX. So we got two days of Kerry as “Elitist snob” even though he is the Ivy Leager who went to Vietnam and has the medals to prove it.
(Unlike a certain President who can’t even prove he showed up for ANG meetings and failed to take a require physical that would have included a drug test)
And that same media has ignored the story out of Iraq that the Army has abandoned one of its own on orders from on high that came from Maliki! I wonder, as does Steve Gilliard, which incident has had a more devastating impact on troop morale?
So here is my point. It is important for Dems to be perfect because, in the current media climate, the GOP will get all the “calls”. That’s how well they have worked the “Refs”. And don’t expect any breaks from “Progressives” either. They have to show their “purity” and “Objectivity” too.
Yeah I’m a shill!
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Oh and I see that “Liberty Dad” loves Marc’s comments. Enough said. Marc Cooper, the Colmes of Pajamas Media!
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Damn, Reg, your son’s in ths Navy!
November 2nd, 2006 at 6:35 pm
I guess I flubbed my satire…
Apologies to the troops, whatever branch they serve in.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Let the hemmoraging stop, Kerry has done the right thing. Now when are we going to hear from Edwards?
And for Wall it’s mange moi, me manger ou me mord however these translations are not colloquial, but quite stiff, however they should get your point across next time you’re in a Franco firefight.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Balter, I wonder if you could outline for me the precise mechanism by which a slim majority of Democrats in Congress could end American involvement in Iraq?
As for your remarks about “political capital”, people seem to get this metaphor wrong. To spend political capital is to sacrifice support for agenda. If the Democrats will spend any political capital gained (? see below) at Bush’s expense over the war in Iraq, they’ll spend it by doing little or nothing–and they might not be able to do much anyway. It works for them to have the GOP “lose Iraq”, unambiguously. It doesn’t work for them to be portrayed as “losing Iraq” (especially given the typical perception of the Dems as being weaker on defense issues, which has only recently, and probably temporarily, reversed.) Bush & Co will seize upon anything to pin the “losing Iraq” charge on the Dems. If “going limp” (while protesting fiercely for the sake of anti-war appearances) costs the Dems some political support, it doesn’t matter so long as the present course in Iraq costs the GOP even more support.
The election may be about Iraq, but that doesn’t give the Dems political capital. It may mean only that they are losing less of it than the GOP. Voter approval of both parties has generally been dropping. Congress’s “political capital” stock is in decline on both sides of the aisle. What may matter more to the Dems (strategically) is that support for the GOP drops faster.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:34 pm
According to the same NYT/CBS poll that gave Dems a 19 point advantage (largest in the survey’s history) a majority believe the Dems will get us out of Iraq - something they approve of, by the way. And a slight majority feel that terrorist attacks would be less likely under the Dems. So there may be some manuvering room for them.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:21 pm
In light of some of the comments here, I have some bad news for the Democrats. It’s not the job of journalists, bloggers, or political commenters to assure the success of your candidates of choice. It’s no one’s job but your own.
I will agree with one criticism of Marc’s blogging style though– the formula of not attacking the Republicans without taking swings at the Democrats does get old. I assume it functions as a disclaimer pre-empting the inevitable charge of Democratic party membership, and it says something really depressing about the state of human “cognition” that such a thing seems necessary, but I think such disclaimers only pander to human stupidity and its dualistic assumptions. Better to let them walk into it and then point out that such assumptions only reveal your opponent’s own partisan blindness. Don’t defuse the trap, use it.
For more debating tricks, look for my forthcoming book Shut Up, Fucktard: How to Hand Your Interlocutors Their Asses from Yale University Press.
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Michael Turner is a great example of an intellectual who lives in his head rather than in the real world. If the Democrats take Congress and then do nothing at all about Iraq, the voters will remember that in 2008. So going limp is a losing strategy for them, and for that reason they are likely to do something significant because that is the platform on which they will have been elected. Congress controls the purse strings of the war, for starters, and it will also control the moral environment, and the political debate. Bush may joke about staying in Iraq even if only Laura and the dog support it, but he is not a dictator yet and can only carry out policy if he has at least some political support for it–after this election he may have none at all, even among Republicans. And then there are the streets, and defections among the military, who don’t want to be the last men and women to die for a mistake as someone one said.
In other words, Turner has a very static view of the world and how it works, while all about him things are changing. Does he ever get back over to the US? I spend two months a year in the USA, despite all the France baiting I get from some rightwingers here like Woody and Jim R., and I can testify that it is a dynamic place where people are unlikely to take too much more lying down.
November 3rd, 2006 at 7:14 am
Eh, maybe. First you have to agknowledge some wriggle room between “do nothing” and complete withdrawl. Certainly, the opportunity for SOME congressional oversite alone makes the point moot, the circus clowns of the right must be sent packing. Bush doens’t need to be impeached, but the story of how the Heritage Foundation glee club was sent to rebuild the Iraqi economy needs to spend a week or two in the headlines.
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:54 am
There’s no quick fix for any of what we’re currently facing, either in Iraq or in our domestic politics. I’ll state forthrightly that a simple withdrawal from Iraq is a bad idea - at least before we’ve tried some diplomatic leverage with internal factions and regional powers to try to re-frame the larger dynamics and isolate al Qaeda elements - perhaps by some plan for partition. I don’t think it’ll work - certainly under this administration - but we have to take some responsibility and not just realign our Iraq strategy according to a Code Pink placard. That would be nuts.
I know this kind of thinking is anathema to Michael B. I don’t believe that if you break “it” you own it (”it” being another country in this case), but I do believe we own our mistakes and simply turning our back on what we’ve done to Iraq, as opposed to a major strategic effort geared toward withdrawal but far more serious and larger in scope than the ridiculous GOPer cartoon of “cut and run” (ideally tied to some dramatic diplomatic initiative toward Iran and Syria) is the turn we should and could make.
Maybe Jim Baker is the key to the Dems forcing Bush to do something that’s more rational than the current course. But the liklihood is that the worst administration in recent history will simply play itself out according to it’s own internal pathologies and the Dems will make political hay. I’m short-term happy that the election is looking bleak for the bad guys, but I’m not very optimistic about the next few years whoever’s reaping political gain.
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:05 am
“I know this kind of thinking is anathema to Michael B.”
No it isn’t, reg. Although the US got into Iraq recklessly, it should exit responsibly. But Americans are going to want that exit to be quick if the Democrats take both houses of Congress, and they will not be very tolerant about their sons and daughters dying for our mistakes.
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:18 am
Glad I didn’t get bashed for that. As much as I’m a Dem partisan in the realm of practical politics, I’d wager a fairly large sum that in two years neither one of us is going to be very happy with the turn things have taken. Don’t have a crystal ball, but I’ve got a bad feeling that’s had about a 99.9% track record of accuracy to date on anything to do with Iraq. One thing that absolutely needs to be done immediately is serious investigation and use of oversight powers, so that whatever happens next, the public is actually informed about what’s happened, how and why, as much as possible. The truth may not set us free, but there’s no question but that more truth makes us a little less stupid.
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:25 pm
I think it will be reasonably fast. The real power will be in that overlooked concept called “Oversght.” What has the Bushies scared silly is the prospect of hearings on everything - like where all that missing money went. It may be that some people will go to jail over this.