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"There isn't anybody, including in the Bush administration, who believes that Kerry meant to insult the soldiers in Iraq with his clumsy joke."

Of course Kerry didn't mean to insult the troops. There were no troops present at his speech. He would never have said such a thing in their presence ... just as he and Theresa make sure the servants are out of earshot before they joke about the hired help or an old time racist southern democrat -- Al Gore, Sr., perhaps -- would never make Sambo jokes to the maid's face.

Kerry was just patronizing some college students with some behind-their-backs humor at the expense of social inferiors. How was he to know the press would pick it up? After all, it's a reasonably fair assumption that most of the press shares his social prejudices. Somehow a ringer got in. Could've happened to anyone. Just bad luck.