Posted on 11/01/2006 3:39:26 PM PST by MadIvan
Democrats stampeded over each other yesterday to disassociate themselves from John Kerry, their presidential candidate two years ago, who has handed Republicans an election lifeline with remarks implying US troops in Iraq are there because they are stupid.
Senator Kerry, speaking to a group of students in California on Monday, 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.” A video of his speech was placed swiftly on the internet and then seized upon by the White House, which has been desperate to switch the focus of voters away from the mounting toll of death and destruction in Iraq before Tuesday’s crucial elections for control of Congress.
On Tuesday night, in scenes reminiscent of the 2004 presidential contest, George Bush demanded that Mr Kerry apologise for his “insulting and shameful” remarks. Yesterday a number of top Democrat candidates joined him in calling on Mr Kerry to say sorry.
Harold Ford Jnr, who is running for the Senate in Tennessee, said: “Whatever the intent, [he] was wrong to say what he said.” Jon Tester, the party’s senatorial candidate in Montana, said: “He owes our troops and their families an apology.” Senator Hillary Clinton called the remarks inappropriate.
At the same time Democrat candidates across the US cancelled scheduled campaign appearances with Mr Kerry, whose distant hopes of another presidential candidacy in 2008 have now all but evaporated.
Mr Kerry on Tuesday had insisted that it was Mr Bush who should apologise. But yesterday he said: “Of course I’m sorry about a botched joke. I mean, you know, it’s pretty stupid.”
He claimed that his remarks had been aimed at Mr Bush for being “intellectually lazy” in getting “us stuck in a war in Iraq” — but he had fluffed his lines.
Instead, he said the mock-outrage of the White House was the latest example of the Republican campaign of “smear and fear” that had characterised attacks on his military record in Vietnam during the 2004 presidential contest, as well as his gaffe that he had voted for Iraq war funding before voting against it.
Yesterday Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, twisted the knife with a direct reference to this when he told a campaign rally: “Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke. I guess we didn’t get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it.”
Mr Kerry has previously attacked the so-called “chicken-hawks” who have cast aspersions on his military record, while never seeing combat themselves. Yesterday he made no reference to how Mr Bush had avoided service in Vietnam, perhaps because it would have meant conceding that the President had got better grades than him at Yale.
# President Bush said last night that he wanted Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, to remain in his Administration until the end of his term.
Ha ha, right on Lonestar. Good correction.
Democrats bungle ditching of Kerry
OKAY Ivan LOL!
I thought maybe you didn't
So Fleet Street has pick it up OH well you know NOW LOL!
Don't forget the reason we had sKerry running in the first place is because Dr Dean's campaign imploded after he made an a$$ of himself with his "I have a Scream" speech.
OMG now I hearing Corba this actually got pick up by my local radio station here in SO CAL KFI 640am OH MAN now Libs would hate Los Angeles MORE
2008 is now over for Kerry... He should retire and write books: "My Botched Life" and "Confessions of a French-American Gigolo"...
"Wonder who is English impaired?"
Remember Lurch is the learning impaired, he got straight Ds his first year, and only one weak C. That is not the record of anyone except one that is mentally challenged.
Oh, by the way the C was in, yep you guessed it, " FRENCH!".
I need more popcorn!
Do one that says: Karry, we kan't reed. Pleaze appolgize in front of a camera and microphone.
Hah you're right, according to their own logic Dems are no longer allowed to even acknowledge the military.
Christian news and commentary at: sacredscoop.com ...
They're even botching the spin.
Attacks which he could have easily defeated had he signed a DOD-180 to release his military record in Vietnam. Why endure all those attacks when the problem could have been solved with a simple act? The only plausible answer is that he would have suffered MORE by releasing those records. Case closed, Mr. Kerry.
They know it NOW because he's been double digits ahead in the polls ever since Lament won the primary. They were ready to throw him under the bus right after Lament, aided by the nutty leftist loonies on their lib blogs, managed to get him through the primaries. "We have to support the dem primary winner" was the mantra, and to hell with Lieberman. But now that Lieberman's so far ahead, they're all his best buddies again. Bah. Those people have NO principles.
It is incredibly apt, isn't it? Right down to wanting to be a writer and marry a rich broad. All it lacks is Jose Ferrer to tell Kerry off and chuck his champagne in his kisser. Somebody ought to.
It sounds like Little Georgie Soros took Hanoi Boi to the woodshed for a "come to Gaia meeting."
LOL
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