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BBC: Surprise gift ~~ Comments on John Kerry's comments...
BBC ^ | 31 Oct 06, 08:47 PM | Richard Greene

Posted on 10/31/2006 7:50:16 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

The Reporters: US mid-terms

George Bush and Dick Cheney have been working overtime (and racking up air miles) to rally conservative stalwarts in the final days before the elections, and on Monday they got a gift from an unexpected source: John Kerry.

kerry_ap203b.jpgAs the president was telling the good people of Texas that the Democrats did not want to win in Iraq, his former rival was in California insulting the troops.

Or so Mr Bush and his spokesman would have us believe. And when you review Mr Kerry’s comment, it’s hard to argue:

"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," he said, eliciting chuckles from the students.

The president demanded an apology, and some furious military bloggers also pounced, calling Mr Kerry a disgrace.

Senator Kerry came out swinging in response, saying he had botched a joke aimed at the president - and that he would apologise to no-one for his criticism. But his tough talk reminded me of an old political maxim: If you're explaining, you're losing.

John Kerry clearly thinks he is going to run for president again in 2008. If he doesn’t have jokes funnier than this, he's going to lose again. And in the meantime, he's not doing his party any favours this year.

Richard Greene is the BBC News website's Washington reporter


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: benedictarnold; kerrydumbiraqgaffe; stuckiniraq
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To: FlipWilson

Flip says "They want to do to Iraq just what they did to our allies in Vietnam."

Not to mention what democrats want to do to the ones doing the heavy lifting in the US armed services, which is portray them in a very negative way, or as "dumb pawns" of the evil Bush.

Kerry falling back into his old habit of showing contempt and disrespect for the fighting men and women of the armed services is as natural as water running downhill.

It was no mystery in 2004 how Kerry viewed the military and the democrats flocked to support him.


41 posted on 10/31/2006 8:43:56 PM PST by EERinOK
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To: umgud

Looks like it. :-)


42 posted on 10/31/2006 8:45:00 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Gee, the BBC got it more accurately than MSNBC.


43 posted on 10/31/2006 8:46:26 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Oh oh, that looks even worse, than hearing him say all that garbage. And that statement is NOT going to help Kerry or the Dems at all.


44 posted on 10/31/2006 8:48:19 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

John Kerry for President in 2008. Please. Pretty please.


45 posted on 10/31/2006 8:48:34 PM PST by Rocky (Air America: Robbing the poor, and still unable to stay in business)
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To: new cruelty
We can and must seize the initiative and make this work for us.

We can totally obliterate the Dem's message in the all-important final week before the elections and turn their preferred issue against them in a way they cannot defend. They have been attacking our efforts in Iraq. Now they have demonstrated that their plan for Iraq is founded on contempt for the American men and women in Iraq who are daily placing their lives on the line.

This is an INCREDIBLE gift, for it discloses the pervasive Democratic enmity toward and hatred of our military forces!

If you don't believe me, take a trip over to the Daily Kos. They're in five-alarm fire mode.

46 posted on 10/31/2006 8:50:25 PM PST by JCEccles
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Hey give this honorable senator lurch an honest break. He was out trick or treatin late and his help is absent for the day. He could have done better if he had had his minds with him.


47 posted on 10/31/2006 8:52:05 PM PST by petertare (!)
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To: blake6900

He delivered the punch line he meant to deliver. Just the way he intended to deliver it. He opened the door of Unintended Consequences into his own face. While it was a "Joke" to his audience. It was a huge insult to those he was demeaning.


48 posted on 10/31/2006 8:53:22 PM PST by rock58seg (The primaries are over. Hold you your nose if necessary, but ....VOTE!...)
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To: JCEccles
They're in five-alarm fire mode.

WONDERFUL!

Thread about cancellations of JFK appearances...:

Heads Up! All Scheduled Kerry Functions for 11/1/06 cancelled

49 posted on 10/31/2006 8:55:27 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Ah--but his website's been cleansed a bit since about 4 p.m. today. This is what was running then:

highlight below:

http://blog.johnkerry.com/2006/10/kerry_if_anyone_owes_our_troop.html


Kerry: "If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President"
Kerry: “If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President”

Transcript of John Kerry Responding to Attacks on his Remarks

Today in a press conference in Seattle, Washington, John Kerry responded to Republican attacks and partisan efforts to distort his botched George Bush joke.

Below is a transcript of Kerry’s remarks, as delivered:

SENATOR KERRY: Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.

If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to stamp -- rubber-stamp policies that
have done injury to our troops and to their families.

My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.

The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops, as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches at which they have not told the American people the truth.

I'm not going to stand for it.

What our troops deserve is a winning strategy. And what they deserve is leadership that is up to the sacrifice that they're making.

Sadly, this is the best that this administration can do in a month when we have lost 100 young men and women who have given their lives for a failed policy.

Over half the names on the Vietnam wall were put there after our leaders knew that our policy was wrong. And it was wrong that leaders were quiet then, and I'm not going to be quiet now.

This is a textbook Republican campaign strategy: Try to change the topic; try to make someone else the issue; try to make something else said the issue, not the policy, not their responsibility.

Well, everybody knows it's not working this time, and I'm not going to stand around and let it work. If anyone thinks that a veteran, someone like me, who's been fighting my entire career to
provide for veterans, to fight for their benefits, to help honor what their service is, if anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy.

It's just wrong. This is a classic GOP textbook Republican campaign tactic.

I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes.

I'm sick and tired of a whole bunch of Republican attacks, most of which come from people who never wore the uniform and never had the courage to stand up and go to war themselves.

Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for this. This policy is broken. And this president and his administration didn't do their homework. They didn't study what would happen in Iraq. They didn't study and listen to the people who were the experts and would have told them.

And they know that's what I was talking about yesterday. I'm not going to be lectured by a White House or by the likes of Rush Limbaugh who's taking a day off from mimicking and attacking Michael J. Fox, who's now going to try to attack me and lie about me and distort me.

No way. It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did.

It's over.

This administration has given us a Katrina foreign policy: mistake upon mistake upon mistake; unwilling to give our troops the armor that they need; unwilling to have enough troops in place;
unwilling to give them the Humvees that they deserve to protect them; unwilling to have a coalition that is adequate to be able to defend our interests.

Our own intelligence agency has told us they're creating more terrorists, not less. They're making us less safe, not more.

I think Americans are sick and tired of this game. These Republicans are afraid to stand up and debate a real veteran on this topic. And they're afraid to debate -- you know, they want to debate
straw men because they're afraid to debate real men.

Well, we're going to have a real debate in this country about this policy. The bottom line is: These Republicans want to distort this policy. And, this time, it won't work because we are going to stay in their face with the truth.

And no Democrat is going to be bullied by these people, by these kinds of attacks that have no place in American politics. It's time to set our policy correct.

They have a stand-still-and-lose policy in Iraq and they have a cut-and-run policy in Afghanistan. And the fact is, our troops, who have served heroically, who deserve better, deserve leadership that is up to their sacrifice, period.

QUESTION: Senator, John McCain said that you owe an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered this country's call because they are patriots.

To those people who didn't get your joke, who may have misinterpreted you as saying the undereducated are cannon fodder, what do you say?

KERRY: I never said that, and John McCain knows I've never said that and John McCain knows I wouldn't say that.

And John McCain ought to ask for an apology from Donald Rumsfeld for making the mistakes he's made. John McCain ought to ask for an apology from this administration for not sending in enough troops.

He ought to ask for an apology for putting our troops on the line with a policy that doesn't have an adequate coalition, that doesn't have adequate diplomacy, where we don't have a strategy to win.

And what we need is to debate the real issues, not these phony, sideline issues that are part of the politics. Americans are tired -- sick and tired of this kind of politics.

They know my true feelings. They know I fought to provide additional money for veterans. They know I fought to provide money for combat for veterans. They know I've fought to put money for V.A. They know I've honored those veterans.

They know that this is the finest military -- and I've said it 100,000 times -- that we've ever had. They know precisely what I was saying.

And they're trying to turn this because they have a bankrupt policy and they can't defend it to the nation and they can't defend it to the world.

KERRY: And I'm not going to stand for this anymore; period. That's the apology that people ought to get.

QUESTION: Do you need to go to joke school?

KERRY: Sure.

QUESTION: Senator, do you regret saying the remark? And what were you trying to say?

KERRY: Very simple: that those who didn't study it properly, those who made the decisions, they got us into Iraq. Very simple.

The fact is they know that. The administration knows that. And they're simply trying to distort this. They're trying to play a game.

And, again, I'm not going to stand for it. This is the kind of thing that makes Americans sick. People know -- I mean, there ought to be some level of honor and trust in this process.

I have fought a lifetime on behalf of veterans. We have the finest young men and women serving us in the United States military that we've ever had, and I'm proud of that.

But this administration has let them down, and that was clearly a remark directed at this administration. They understand it. They want to distort it. It's a classic Republican playbook. They want to change the topic.

We're not going to let them change the topic. The topic is their failed policy in Iraq. The topic is that they don't have a strategy, they don't have a way to be able to win.

You got Dick Cheney saying everything's just terrific in Iraq only a week ago. John McCain ought to ask for an apology from Dick Cheney for misleading America. He ought to ask for an apology from the president for lying about the nuclear program in Africa. He ought to ask for an apology for once again a week ago referring to Al Qaida as being the central problem in Iraq, when Al Qaida is not the central problem.

Enough is enough. I'm not going to stand for these people trying to shift the topic and make it politics. America deserves a real discussion about real policy. And that's what this election is going to be about next Tuesday.

One more question, then I got to run.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

KERRY: Let me tell you something: I'm not going to give them one ounce of daylight to spread one of their lies and to play this game ever, ever again. That is a lesson I learned deep and hard.

(NOTE FOLLOWING, in particular)

And I'll tell you: I will stand up anywhere across this country and take these guys on. This is dishonoring not just the troops themselves by pointing the finger at the troops, it's abusing the
troops. They're using the troops. They're trying to make the troops into the target here. I didn't do that, and they know that.

KERRY: And for them to suggest that somebody who served their country, as I did, and has a record like I have in the United States Congress of standing up and fighting for the troops would ever, ever insult the troops is an insult in and of itself.

And they owe us an apology for even daring to use the White House to stand up and make this an issue again. Shame on them. Shame on them.

And may the American people take that shame to the polls with them next Tuesday.

Thank you all.

QUESTION: What do you say to the men and women fighting in Iraq if they hear this in passing, that may be confused on the issue, sir?

KERRY: They will hear what I just said. I honor their service, and I always have.

Posted by John Kerry on October 31, 2006 4:13 PM | Link
Filed under: The War in Iraq
Tags: John Kerry, All tags



50 posted on 10/31/2006 8:59:02 PM PST by Mach9 (.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

That was a joke? I think he meant that seriously.


51 posted on 10/31/2006 9:06:07 PM PST by Kirkwood
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To: new cruelty

Kerry could have cleaned this up with the apology. He didn't.

Instead, he broke it off in the lock.

Nope, this one is going the distance.


52 posted on 10/31/2006 9:07:10 PM PST by RinaseaofDs
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To: Mach9

Man,...they did a major editing job...thanks for posting that.


53 posted on 10/31/2006 9:09:08 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Hope the reps make it into a commercial and play it everywhere.


54 posted on 10/31/2006 9:11:02 PM PST by tkathy (Some of the 9/11 hijackers were smiling taxi drivers.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

He should resign. He's known as a big joke to the entire world. I'm sure the terrorists would love to have him as President. He really is an embarrassment.


55 posted on 10/31/2006 9:12:02 PM PST by NRA2BFree (THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE SWORD GET SHOT BY THOSE WHO DON*T!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I love that BBC comment, "IF YOU ARE EXPLAINING, YOU ARE LOSING"!!...LOL

Perfect. Keep on explaining, John.

56 posted on 10/31/2006 9:12:42 PM PST by stockstrader (“Where government advances–and it advances RELENTLESSLY-freedom is imperiled”-Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: Rocky
"John Kerry for President in 2008. Please. Pretty please."

Hillary is loving it. I wonder what her response will be.

57 posted on 10/31/2006 9:15:48 PM PST by blam
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To: bannie
Doesn't he have any advisors?

They all cut and ran long ago.

58 posted on 10/31/2006 9:17:48 PM PST by Cementjungle
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

OUTSTANDING!


59 posted on 10/31/2006 9:31:19 PM PST by Frwy (Eternity without Jesus is a hell-of-a long time.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Kerry, once again demonstrated his infuriating arrogance and belief the American people are ignorant enough to accept his explanation and his credentials as a serious contender for leadership...

Notice --- his "better plans" and "better ideas" have NEVER been revealed... They don't exist.
Nor has he released his COMPLETE military and medical records to prove his claims of heroism and war wounds...
He is 100% unadulterated bullshit...and a lying traitor to boot.

"Unfit for Command".... That's Kerry.

If indeed the insult aimed at the military was unintended and REALLY a joke he screwed up -- then what the hell is the justification for not apologizing for screwing up the joke and causing UNINTENDED insult?

The reason Kerry can't apologize - is Kerry is too Proud arrogant and ignorant to apologize.

Kerry finally jumped the shark this week.....FINALLY in a manner that all can see and none can deny...

He is a certifiable asshole and fool to boot.

Semper Fi

60 posted on 10/31/2006 9:39:38 PM PST by river rat (You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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