Conservative paper on Kerry: Apology too late. (Uses GOP Lies)

[usregimechange]

Sen. John Kerry stuck out his jaw and got clobbered. The Massachusetts Democrat, an unsuccessful candidate for president two years ago, suggested to a campaign rally of college students in Pasadena, Calif., that they need to get an education because “if you don’t, you’ll get stuck in Iraq.”

The implication apparently read by both Republicans and Democrats was that our troops are undereducated or uneducated. Such nonsense was, at best, an outrageously inappropriate, botched joke about troops who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world. At worst, it was a slap in the face of every American who is or has served in the military. After stubbornly refusing to apologize, Kerry finally did the right thing. He said he was sorry.

Not everyone may be understanding, particularly since he took so long to decide that he had offended those Americans who have defended this country in times of peril and peace. National American Legion Commander Paul A. Morin had commented: “A generation ago, Sen. Kerry slandered his comrades in Vietnam by saying that they were rapists and murderers. It wasn’t true then and his warped view of today’s heroes isn’t true now.”

Our troops daily demonstrate their love for the United States and their determination to defend our freedoms, our values and our interests. America’s liberties were hard won in the furnace of the Revolutionary War, and then tempered by other conflicts over the course of our history. Kerry’s delay in offering an apology turned a really, really bad joke to an unforgivable slap at our troops.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_307231106.html

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Editors:
Clair Goodwin
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Ed Simpson
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Administration

Christina Jones
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Dan Chiodo
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David Starchman
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Karen Fritchey
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Kathleen Schrader
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Kelli Price
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[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

:mad: :grr: :nuke:

[bluestateguy]

1. And there you have it

That's why apologies never do any good in politics. Because your critics just keep on beating up on you anyway, and then you look weak for having capitulated.

[JeffR]

2. To everything, spin, spin, spin

There is a season, spin, spin, spin...

The right wing's season endeth.

[Nevernose]

3. "I wasn't calling soldiers stupid, I was calling Bush stupid."

Ten words that would have nipped this all at the bud.

[sandnsea]

7. 10/31 3:12 PM

In my email:

"This pathetic attempt to distort a botched joke about President Bush is a shameful effort to distract from a botched war."

It took too long or wasn't said right is just the latest right wing method of extending this completely phony 'scandal'. I do not know when Democrats will get it and just stand by the one being attacked. Bush botched the war. Period.

[Nevernose]

8. I don't blame Kerry, ultimately

Just saying that he could have laid it out in more simple, concise, and easy language. Democrats could have stood up and showed more spine, too -- though many did show more spine, at first, than usual.

I don't think he should have apologized, either, but "I was calling Bush stupid" is a better soundbite than "botched joke ... shameful effort ... et cetera."

Americans, in the end, will always support someone who tells it like it is, rahter than someone who tries to find the cleverst language. Look at Truman.

I still like Kerry, but, then again, I understood the joke and was willing to dig beyond three seconds of local news coverage for the context. Most people just saw "Kerry thinks soldiers are stupid."

[sandnsea]

9. I think everybody heard 'botched joke'

Seems pretty clear to me. The very first day lots of pundits were saying Bush is too stupid to know he was being called stupid. There's nothing that can be done if the liars keep lying and the party stands back and let's another swiftboating happen. This IS what happened in 2004 too. There were people who had never spoken about Vietnam that came out to defend him. The media just reported the lies. Democrats just lined up to criticize him instead of helping to spread the truth. If Democrats hadn't immediately went to Murtha's defense, Kerry leading the pack, the media would have done the same thing to him. The DC Party decides who to go to the mat for and it is NEVER John Kerry.

[Mass]

11. ANd that he said as early as Tuesday.

The story would have been closed if the Democrats had had a minimum of intelligence.

Rather than attacking Bush for hypocrisy, they called on Kerry to apologize and created a new news cycle on how Democrats disavowed him.

Statement made by John Kerry on Tuesday Oct 31rst, 9 AM PST (where Kerry was). This is when the Democrats panicked because he was answering back rather than laying low.

They compounded a stupid joke gone awry by the proof that they would let any Democrats be bullied by the media.

http://www.johnkerry.com/news/releases/release.html?id=34

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.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Hmmmm. They can't think of anything else to talk about?

Nothing?

Nothing at all?

Anyway, once I finally got what Kerry was trying to say, (he pulled a Neil Armstrong, essentially. By leaving out one word, "us", he changed the meaning of his sentence) the full ludicrousness of how much this fucker had been dragged out of proportion really hit home. It was a dumb joke, but it was aimed at Bush, not "the troops".

These assholes need to let it go, but the more they pathetically try to flog it the more clear it becomes that they have less than squat to run on. Like the campaign in New York where the Republican's entire election platform consists of charging his opponent's staff with Mis-dialing the Justice Department and getting a phone sex line by accident. Once.

Perhaps they'd like to talk about Bush publishing a how-to guide for nuclear weapons In Arabic on the internet.

[rodeodance]

5. nothing but stupid noise about this issue.

[usregimechange]

6. Sign my petition!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/joplinglobe_apologize/

[wisteria]

10. All our party had to do was stand by him.

Instead, they were mad because he didn't apologize right away for something he didn't say. The Repubs were going to use their lies against kerry and the party, no matter when he apologized. The apology was never going to be enough. This is all they have to run on. They are so desperate to maintain their power. This isn't going to work. No one cares that Kerry flubbed a line.