From Salon.com:
Campaigning with California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides Monday, John Kerry told a crowd at Pasadena City College: “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 folks say he was talking about W. and not belittling the troops—many of whom are indeed “stuck” there longer than their tours were supposed to last. I can buy it, if for no other reason that Kerry served in Vietnam and hasn’t ever insulted the troops.
The GOP’s response? In addition to the RNC issuing a knee-jerk press release and John McBushAsslickerCain calling the comment “insensitive”, the White House Snowed in with this (also from Salon):
Tony Snow said today that Kerry “not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who have given their lives in this.” Snow said that Democratic candidates like Jim Webb and Tammy Duckworth should be asked whether they’re in accord with Kerry’s “absolute insult.”
This is the point, I thought to myself as I read the article, where John Kerry will take 15 minutes to ramble on about the niceties of rhetoric and political stumping and end up with the GOP being the final voice anyone was actually listening to.
But no! Kerry speaks up in the way he spoke up after serving in Vietnam, with conviction and passion. Here’s the remainder of the article:
Kerry will hold a press conference later today. In the meantime, he has issued a statement in which he pushes back hard. “If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy,” Kerry said. “This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.”<br/> <br/>Kerry said he won’t be “lectured” by a “stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium” or by “doughy Rush Limbaugh,” and that he’s disgusted when “Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.” If anyone owes the troops an apology, he said, it’s “George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.”
Wow. Snow = stuffed suit White House mouthpiece. Rush Limbaugh = doughy. And the current reality stated more baldly than any Democrat has been able to do so far.
Is this the tipping point?
Technorati Tags: george bush, god of biscuits, john kerry, dick cheney, stuck in Iraq, tony snow
Thank God Kerry wasn’t elected in 2004!!!!!!!!!!
Wow. TEN exclamation points!
To earn those ten, name 10 things Bush has done better than Kerry would have.
Y’know, aside from getting american soldiers killed, getting 100,000+ MORE human beings killed, making us even more despised around the world, and spending us into a debt that we may never recover from?
“John McBushAsslickerCain”
Very classy. You should apply to be Kerry’s speechwriter.
On behalf of the entire Schwarzenenegger campaign committee, let me just say, “Thanks, John.”
Gee, Sarge, you’re a Republican partyliner and you’re getting all butt-hurt with namecalling?
What a hypocrite.
I wasn’t speechwriting, I want speaking my mind and pulling no punches.
You know, like your boy Arnold, the guber who won the last gubernatorial election.
I, too, am relieved that Kerry wasn’t elected. My reasons are clear, and I share them with my Republican friends:
1) I hate liberty (and hence eliminate as many liberties as possible) 2) I hate the troops (and hence want as many of them to die as possible) 3) I hate education (and hence underfund and undermine it consistently) 4) I hate fags (and blacks, and Jews, and anyone else not white and Christian) 5) I hate the rest of the world (and hence act as though it doesn’t exist) 6) I hate 7) I hate 8) I hate
Thank god Kerry didn’t win in 2004! Let - umm… - Ring!
God, I hate (you knew that) to double post, but I forgot to mention I also hate fiscal responsibility, small government, and - you know - the truth.
Wow. You’ve got some cranky readers. And none-too-brilliant, either: How exactly does some random thing that Kerry says about Iraq have anything to do with the Gropinator?
Also, Kerry was right. Both times.
When is someone going to remind folks that one of the reasons “The Decider” won in 2004 was that the dear governerator was out campaigning for him in Ohio. Are we so short sighted as to provide Ahhnold that platform again in 2008?
You know what makes me cranky? “Al” from Bent Collective resuming blogging.
I love Kerry. It’s about time someone called the Reps on their Headline soundbyte bullshit mudslinging. It’s about time someone is allowed to criticize the Bush administration without them trying to turn it into an attack on the kids who are dying so the Bush’s can get solidify their oil interests in the middle east.
And I don’t think John should have backed down from the inference of his statement either. It is the lower/ middle class poorly educated, socially disadvantaged and primarily minority kids that are dying. Because it sure as F*** isn’t rich white rebublican children that are being sent to Iraq.