I say Kerry intentionally revealed his true feelings and miscalculated, brain-farted, and overlooked the negative response to his snobbish comment.
Why is this surprising? Heck, he's been saying virtually the same thing about our military since his Vietnam days--over 30 years now.
Nothing 'botched' here. Nothing 'botched' at all.
His tortured and pathetic explanation was even more transparent, phoney, patronizing and insulting than his original slander of our military.