The Anchoress

John Kerry at Yale

John Kerry needs a good swift kick to the ass for this, and it’s really the Commander-in-Chief’s job to do it.

Writes John Stephenson, who has the video:

The latest idiocy and insult from John F’n Kerry:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

My quick son Buster heard that and said, “well, he’s ‘ivy league educated’ C student and he ended up stuck ’somewhere in Cambodia,’ with a ‘magic hat’…so he’s speaking from experience, right?”

Buster aside, I wonder what this Harvard Alumnus Marine would have to say to Kerry. Kerry isn’t worthy to shine his shoes. Nor his. Nor the shoes of the Yale alum written about here. Nor the Princeton grad, now serving in Iraq, mentioned here. Or of this slain captain. He’s not worthy to shine the shoes of the pediatrician in my neighborhood who has rotated through Iraq and says she hated to leave because of the good work she was able to do there.

In fact, he’s not worthy to shine the shoes of any of the men and women serving honorably in Iraq, regardless of whether they have an ivy league degree, or a simple GED diploma, because the ignorant crap that comes out of his mouth proves he is nothing but a flip-flopping knucklehead who seems to be too stupid, too caught up in his insecurities and his Beacon Hill pretensions, and just plain too dishonorable to even understand what our military men and women are doing…or that it takes some serious smarts to cover men from a crippled chopper and then land it safely (or to fly a fighter jet) and it takes enormous personal courage to put yourself at risk to save your platoon.

What stunning disrespect to our military men and women by a man who clearly has no regard for their service and too much regard (though little self-respect) for himself.

John Kerry is a counter to the argument that “the military instills discipline and makes you grow up.” He’s never managed it. All he is, is one more boomer who is nothing but a perpetual, petulant adolescent.

One friend of mine thinks Kerry is not talking about our military men and women, that he’s talking about President Bush, instead - you know - he’s using his famous “nuance”….oh, really? The fact that he is standing before a bunch of college students, echoing the sentiments from far-lefty sites who routinely denigrate the intelligence and educations of our servicemen and women indicates differently.

And ummm…Kerry wasn’t exactly a whale of a student, either, as I recall:

During last year’s presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

Under Yale’s grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade. In addition to Kerry’s four D’s in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year. He did not fail any courses. [...]Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy.

If Kerry is now going to try to say he wasn’t speaking about the military, but chiding President Bush for “not doing his homework and getting stuck in Iraq,” then I guess he’s going to be indicting himself and both houses of congress who voted for the war?

But they did their homework! We have the quotes!

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real…”
– Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003, Georgetown University

Captain Ed is stunned too:

Wow. Just wow. It’s worth recalling that Kerry at one time aspired to command these same men and women from the White House, and claims to still want to lead them. How would these people react to taking orders from a Commander-in-Chief who believes them to be uneducated, lazy losers?

We’ll see if Kerry’s peers in the Democratic Party support Kerry’s description of our fighting men and women. If Democrats that have had John Kerry campaign on their behalf refuse to address Kerry’s remarks or openly supports their characterization, it will expose the hypocrisy and the contempt that the Left has for the military. All of the talk of “supporting the troops” will be revealed as lip service.

I can’t think of anything that has made me this angry in a long, long time. What a stunningly STUPID man.

John McCain is calling for Kerry to apologize. He said:

“Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn’t live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.”

Bush should have been first out the door with that. He did finally make a good statement.

Instapundit calls Kerry’s remarks not only reprehensible, but false on the facts.

Also writing:
Political Pitbull
Texas Rainmaker, who quotes a study about the education levels of our troops.
Iowa Voice
Sister Toldjah
Michelle Malkin, who has a good round-up and lots of facts.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Tom Maguire
Gateway Pundit Debunks the myths