Wednesday, November 01, 2006
KERRY BURIED
The New York Times reports John Kerry’s “botched joke” ... which you’ll find hidden somewhere beneath 763 words of NYTedium:
For at least a few hours on Tuesday, President Bush had a chance to relive his victorious campaign of 2004, taking a break from a bleak Republican campaign season as he attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war in Iraq.
Evasively broad; Bush attacked Kerry over comments made about the education level of US troops.
Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was Mr. Bush’s opponent in 2004, is not running for office this year. But the president seized on what he said were Mr. Kerry’s disparaging remarks about the troops — and what Mr. Kerry insisted was a botched joke aimed at Mr. Bush — as he sought to make Mr. Kerry the face of the Democratic Party this fall.
His face is big enough. Still, at least we’ve gotten a little closer to the issue.
In the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq ...
There’s a war in Iraq? Who knew? Thereafter follows a few hundred words from trembly, war-shy Republicans and an anonymous “senior Republican Party Senate strategist” before the Kerry comments are finally revealed:
In his remarks in California on Monday, Mr. Kerry 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. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
Kerry’s excuse is breathtaking:
Mr. Kerry said 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.”
That joke was prepared and Kerry still managed to ruin it? Wasn’t he meant to be the smart guy all loaded with nuancy prowess? How “intellectually lazy” is it to forget a lame punchline? For that matter, how lazy is Kerry to forget he voted in favour of the war?
Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran ...
I doubt this. If true, surely we’d have heard about it previously. More on Mr Heinz from Powerline and Little Green Footballs.
UPDATE. The ABC’s Eleanor Hall reports:
In the United States the flamboyant former Presidential candidate John Kerry has given his political opponents an unexpected boost in the mid-term election campaign, with remarks that Republicans say amount to troop bashing.
Flamboyant?
(Via Paul Wright)