Well, the statement he made on CNN was pretty darn good. It went on a tad too long, but it wasn't, ahem, nuanced in the slightest. One quote, "I apologize for nothing. They [The White House] know what I was trying to say full well." Also, "They have a stand-and-die policy in Iraq, and a cut-and-run policy in Afghanistan".

Every joke has a set up. The set up is generally more important than the punch. This case is proof positive.

As anybody who has followed Kerry's career will tell you, he is just doesn't know how to tell a joke. He left a critical element of the set up out of the joke. That mistake has bit him in the ass. That is his fault for trying to do something beyond his ability.

As every comedian will tell you, joke telling is a difficult literary. Telling a joke should not be attempted by anyone who doesn't understand how structured.

John Kerry shouldn't be permitted to tell jokes in the future, at least not until he has taken a class in basic humor 101 at the local community college.

"As every comedian will tell you, joke telling is a difficult literary. Telling a joke should not be attempted by anyone who doesn't understand how structured."

Obviously this sentence should have read

"As every comedian will tell you, joke telling is a difficult literary form. Telling a joke should not be attempted by anyone who doesn't understand how jokes arestructured."

See what happens when you leave out a couple of words. The Republicans have a field day.

Senator Kerry said:

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

Because the current President actually has a Master's Degree, it would seem he managed to navigate the educational system at least one step higher than most Presidents.

Presumably, Senator Kerry was referring to some other measurement of education and being smart - such as not being George Bush, it being a given among Democrats that the President is a moron. However, if the President is a moron, he's apparently made as much of his education as anyone could reasonably expect, which makes the premise of the joke rather weak to begin with.

Alternatively, Senator Kerry was actually referring to the troops, it being a commonly held (and incorrect) belief that people become soldiers because they have no other choices.

Either way, the Senator might have chosen his words more carefully.

Finally- an honest liberal. Frank got the Kerry incident just right. Kerry is a disaster as a politician and Democrats should view this latest gaffe by their hero as an explanation of 2004. The electorate saw Kerry then the same way Frank sees Kerry now. Kerry is a genuine fake, a disaster, and only a place like Massachussets could elect men like Kerry and Kennedy, for that matter, to high elective office.

Clearly if you read his comment AS IS, he says GEORGE BUSH was not educated and GEORGE BUSH got stuck in Iraq.

So TA Frank: this comment is no more worthy of indignation than any other comment that tells the truth. This reminds me so much of the Debate where the press acted as though Kerry outed Mary Cheney even though she is/was a professional lesbian--paid to do outreach by the right to gays and lesbians. Meanwhile Bush had lied and said he never said he wasn't worried about Osama. (Bush just lied and said he never said Stay the Course)

We don't have to be surprised that they jumped on it, but please spare the usual "Blame-the -Democrat" first crap. I can go to CNN if I want that.

It's stupid political suicide to say it, but Kerry's mis-speaking wasn't far off. Nobody's willing to admit that with our current environment of constant "Support The Troops!!" love-ins, but it's true.

I spent a decade in the Air Force, the "smartest" of the branches. Still plenty of stupid people. In the middle of a war like Iraq, some may enlist for patriotism, but more go because they don't have anywhere else to go. In peacetime, it's even more true. Now, the Army and Marines are lowering what were already-laughable academic standards, because they can't meet recruiting goals.

I'm a vet, I spent my time, but I'll say what nobody else will - many, many of the kids stuck in Iraq are there for exactly the reason Kerry didn't mean to say.

wrong. although the number of Category IV recruits has slightly increased, so has the number of Category I recruits.

but anyway, here is the actual data on the education of today's military:

http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep2004/download/2004report.pdf

and here's the data on their family incomes:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm

When is George Bush going to apologize for losing Iraq?

Kerry flubs a line and he gets immolated,

Bush lies us into a war and loses the war, kills 2800+ troops, injures 22,000+ more, kills hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and there's no end in sight.

Where are the hordes demanding an apology for that little blooper?

I'm not holding my breath for that, obviously.

In other news, the lying assholes of the Right will be saying Kerry insulted the troops for fucking ever, even though they know it's a lie.

Sorry, Nathan. You point to scores and reports from biased sources (the military itself lies through its teeth, and a conservative think tank is hardly neutral) - I lived it. Which service we you in, again?

It's not 1-to-1, of course, and the relatioship is an "implies" one: The fact that many undereducated people resort to the military does not mean that all people in the military are undereducated.

Military recruitment is easier when the economy is down, and harder when it's good. Same thing goes for retention. The military has been slowly phasing highly technical jobs to contracting for years, because it can't compete for and retain skilled people, from pilots to computer professionals. For the ten years I served, I watched exactly tyo types of person re-enlist: Those with less than 5 years to go to hit their 20, and those too incompetent to land an outside job.

There are also no GPA restrictions on military service. People who couldn't get accepted at anything but the local VoTech school can get into the Army just fine.

I served with many of these people, and I have the utmost respect for all of them. But pretending that poorer education or ability doesn't play a role is delusional.