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November 1, 2006John Kerry: “No, no, THIS was the punchline!”Whew! Glad that’s all over! John Kerry has apologized for insulting the troops. Sort of. It’s not an apology that would ever be accepted by the press or the Dems, had a conservative “botched a joke,” but we’re told this is “the apology:” “I said it was a botched joke. Of course, I’m sorry about a botched joke,” Kerry, who had refused to apologize on Tuesday, said on the “Imus in the Morning” radio show on MSNBC. Alright, if you say so. Yesterday, I was almost willing to believe the “botched joke” excuse Today, I’m believing it less. The problem I’m having is that the supposed punchline has changed since yesterday. Yesterday the punchline was supposed to be: “If you don’t you get us stuck in Iraq!” Seems to me if a joke really was a “joke”, then the joke has always had one punchline. Not two. The first print report I of saw of Kerry’s remarks, written before the story became a brouhaha, said this: Kerry then told the students that if they were able to navigate the education system, they could get comfortable jobs - “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” he said to a mixture of laughter and gasps. If you’re expecting laughs and you hear gasps, a siren should ring through your melon. You should think, “wait…did that come out right?” And if you realize it did not, you immediately say to your audience, “wait, I’m a chucklehead! I did not mean the troops are stupid. Their CIC sure is, though!” And the har-har’s would commence, and there would be no story. Or, if you give a speech and really don’t realize what you said, but you see a tape afterward that gives a very strong impression that you’ve just called our troops stupid and uneducated…and if that is not what you meant…you call a quick press conference and explain that you are horrified to see that you made a huge blooper, that you never intended in any way to disparage the troops for whom you have all the respect in the world, so much so that you simply can’t forgive their CIC…blah, blah…” And there is no brouhaha. However, if you realize that you “botched a joke” (if that’s what you did) and then immediately go swaggering out to a press conference declaring, “I apologize to no one,” and prattling on about “Katrina foreign policy” and “cutting and running in Afghanistan,” well…you kind of destroy your chance to believably claim you “botched a joke.” When your “botched joke” sounds rather a lot like echos of your past public disparagement and disdain for American troops, it all seems less like a “botched joke” and more like a “reflexive and ingrained hate.” Unless, of course…you WANT the brouhaha, because it’s been a while since you graced a magazine cover or led a news broadcast. Once one has “botched” a moment, how one “unbotches” the thing tells a great deal about their personal character and their leadership abilities. The press is going to give Kerry a pass, no matter what. But he has offered two punchlines as an excuse, and his “apology” amounts to “I’m sorry I blew the joke…” There is still absolutely NO acknowledgement that in blowing the joke he impugned the brave and honorable military he once presumed to lead. There is no acknowledgement of the insult or the hurt. “I’m sorry I blew the joke,” is a coward’s apology. It is meaningless. It takes no responsibility for the fallout from a thoughtless utterance. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean to, please accept my apology” is what grown-ups say. Children say “I’m sorry I screwed up the joke.” It is a profoundly stupid, adolescent and, yes, COWARDLY way to apologize. Go home, Mr. Kerry. Go surf the wind. Go write some more bills naming special days for special people. Maybe go see a shrink about why you’re so uncomfortable in your own skin. You’re done, nationally. You will probably get to be a Massachsetts senator for the rest of your life - why not, Teddy got to be one, too - but after this election no one is going to come knocking on your door for much of anything. And what influence you had will quickly ebb. And you deserve this. A man who can’t make a decent apology, who hasn’t enough of himself within himself to securely do that, deserves less, not more, public influence. And some pity. And btw, Mr. Kerry? The troops are much wittier and more clever than you are. They know how to joke around.
Meanwhile, The Moderate Voice has the best and most comprehensive overview of this whole story from start to finish, and a terrific round-up. Great work. Also Writing: http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/11/01/john-kerry-no-this-was-the-punchline/trackback/ 12 Responses to “John Kerry: “No, no, THIS was the punchline!”” |
November 1st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
An Edjukated Wensdy Reedin Lisst.
Jon Care-y sez smart peepul end up lik him.
I thunk it over.
I’d rathur be brav then smart. Jusst like theze guyz:
Tip of the Hornz, Michelle Malkin.
If’n you’d lik to know what dum yakz reed on Wensdys, here iz a sample:
1…
November 1st, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I wound up talking to my father about this today. (Didn’t mean to, but he asked how Hubby did making his First Degree as a new brother Knight, and I mentioned casually that some poor guy making his F.D. that night was named John Kerry.)
Anywho…
Dad, a Viet Nam vet, nearly had an aneurism. He said that with Kerry’s track record, you can be dang sure (I’m cleaning up his language a bit) that Kerry meant exactly what he said. I tend to agree. His bit about never wanting to insult our military is a bald-faced lie. He did it 30 years ago when he accused the military of widespread war crimes, and he did it recently when he said that our military was terrorizing women and children in Iraq, breaking in during the dead of night.
Kerry is one of the few people I’d like so smack upside the head. Because of people like him, my father got spit on when he returned from Viet Nam. (Which, if you think about it, isn’t all that bright. After all, some of those guys were in the jungle a day or so before, and here’s some junked-up hippy spitting on him?)
It’s all damage control for Kerry, but, then again, wasn’t that basically his whole campaign in 2004?
November 1st, 2006 at 3:13 pm
No Apology Yet - Updated
Kerry’s defense seems to be that we should all know better, the problem for him is that we do. It’s his problem to fix and he’s not interested in doing it - that’s what he gets for being an arrogant S.O.B., who thinks he can say whatever he wants …
November 1st, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I agree with soccer mom and her FIL.
Kerry knew what he was saying (he knows the press- he’s been dealing with them for decades), no question about about.
He was looking to establish his far left bona fides, knowing full he’d have to ‘apologize,’ and thus establish himself as credible to far left voters. He didn’t say anything they don’t repeat every day.
In the end, Kerry is just another dime store politician, whose wife bought him a fancy suit, in the belief that a well dressed and well coiffed liar is more believable.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:51 pm
John Kerry knew exactly what he was saying when he said it and he is not for one second sorry that he said it - except for the fact that (a) he got caught and (b) it upset a large number of his fellow DEMOCRATS! Otherwise we STILL would not have heard one word of apology from this overinflated ego masquerading as a human being.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Your dad is right, GOPSoccerMom. Let me add that, as a person who was a dumb teenaged girl in 1969, there is another aspect to Kerry’s insult that goes directly to his inability to move beyond the Great Activist 60s. The reason I and anyone of similar age know for sure he was not joking but delivering an insult, is that during the 60s, it was taken for granted by us “smart” kids that if you had a brain, you went to college and got a draft deferment. No college? Then you got drafted. Naturally we considered that cool guys were too clever by half to get “stuck” this way, and we didn’t know anyone who enlisted, so we presumed everyone felt as we did! Thank God I eventually grew up and got a grip on reality, but when I heard that sound clip, I knew EXACTLY what he was trying to say, and it was not a joke. And, although I was happily not among those who spat on returning soldiers, I would like to apologize to your dad for not supporting our troops at that time. It was not only stupid and ungrateful, but it was based on a laughably immature picture of the world. My best regards to both of you, Madi.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Kerry meant to say that we need a broad reform of US foreign policy that would include better cooperation with other nations and bilateral talks with enemy nations. And that his mom sang a German-language version of a union song to him when he was just a babe, not that one that came along when he was in his twenties. There is nothing to see here, folks, just move along…I trust everything John Kerry says–or doesn’t say. Just as I trust the polls that say because Republicans are upset that Bush and the other Republicans in office aren’t Conservative enough, they are going to vote Democrat.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:25 pm
[...] UPDATE#7: I’m posting this just in case Senator Kerry needs a really good example of how he should phrase his apology - from The Anchoress: “I’m sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean to, please accept my apology” | Permalink | TrackBack [...]
November 1st, 2006 at 4:55 pm
White House Spokesman Slams Kerry Remark
The White House accused Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday of troop-bashing, seizing on a comment the Democr
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:05 am
I’ve been struggling, over the last few days, on how to comment on the Kerry kerfluffle. On the one had, IMHO, he’s an idiot. A well educated idiot. He shouldn’t have said what he did. However, I will say that over the last 9 months I’ve stayed in a number of hotels in LA, on of which had a large number of new recruits on a fairly regular basis. All of them were young- painfully young, most under 20. I talked to them out at the smoking post- I don’t know, maybe 20 or so over the months. Most were not college educated. They talked about large signing bonuses, and it paying better than jobs where they were from. They bummed cigarettes, and a few asked me if I had any younger friends I could “introduce” them to for a night. My point? There is an element of truth in what he said. Many of the recruits are young, and not “educated”. And a few I talked to didn’t seem to feel they had a lot of other options that would reward them the same. Not all, but some. So I get his point. But sometimes, making the point isn’t worth it, and I would expect a politician with his experience to know that.
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:03 am
[...] Senator Kerry has taken a lot of abuse for his little comment about education and the military. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He did. [...]
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Dear Jon Carry…
Blogswarm: My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (2), Stop The ACLU, Blue Star Chronicles, The Anchoress (2), Pattericos Pontifications, A Blog For All, The Political Pit Bull, 7.62mm Justice, Sticky Notes, Politechnical, Snapped Shot, RightWinged, Frenchma…