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# Posted 11:39 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

SO I FINALLY FOUND OUT WHAT KERRY SAID THAT WAS SO OFFENSIVE: Kerry's apology made the front page of the WaPo, but I had to read down nine paragraphs to find out what Kerry was actually apologizing for:

Speaking to an audience in California on Monday, Kerry said: "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Kerry said yesterday that he meant it as a dig at Bush, and his office released a copy of the prepared remarks he was supposed to deliver: "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

Call me naive -- YOU'RE NAIVE! -- but I think Kerry is actually telling the truth about what happened. After all, he's a flip-flopper, not a liar. Kerry's excuse reminds me of Clinton saying that he didn't inhale. It's an excuse so preposterous you wouldn't bother making it unless it were true.

So how did Kerry manage to mangle his own scripted humor in such a self-destructive manner? I don't really know, but this is the same man who said "I voted for the bill before I voted against it."

Getting back to the WaPo, I thought it was interesting what got mentioned in the eight paragraphs before the relevant quotation from Kerry. Paragraph Two began as follows:

The White House and Republican allies orchestrated a cascade of denunciations throughout the day to keep the once and possibly future presidential candidate on the defensive and force other Democrats to distance themselves.

Only in Paragraphs Fourteen and Fifteen do we finally get to hear Harold Ford and Hillary Clinton condemn Kerry's remarks (although there was an oblique mention earlier of Democratic pressure to apologize).

Anyhow, my favorite paragraph in the whole article is #3, which consists of the following sentence:

Republican strategists appeared almost gleeful over the contretemps because it revived a favorite target at a time they need to motivate core supporters to vote in Tuesday's midterm elections.

Who are these unnamed strategists? The correspondents for the Post never tell us. How can a factual news article report that a group of individuals "appeared almost gleeful"? Is this an assessment of their collective facial expressions?

To be fair, this sentence is probably based on good reporting, ridiculous as it sounds. The Post's correspondents probably spoke to some actual GOP strategists and found them in a thinly-veiled celebratory mood. Perhaps one of those strategists even suggested the phrase "almost gleeful" to describe himself.

Nonetheless, it is sort of strange that you have to be familiar with an unspoken code in order to decipher what's on the front page of the WaPo. I'd prefer a more direct approach.

(13) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:

Not naïve, just predictable.

Perhaps if you were half as 'vigilant' with your faux-umbrage with the Draft Dodger in Chief, you'd be convincing. And if a high school guidance counselor were to use Kerry's exact uncorrected words, I'd consider it to be good advice.

Exact words. Good advice.

But it takes an opportunistic Republican (such as yourself) to try to twist them, to try contort them, into something they aren't. They are good advice to students; there is in them a tacit criticism of the war; but they aren't a criticism of the warriors.

The election is about the war and not about the warriors. Bush, having never been a warrior himself, doesn't particularly care about them. The real insult is his callous disregard for them as is evidenced by his never having been to a single one of their funerals.

Not one. Every wonder why, or does it escape your 'vigilance'?

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:36 AM

You see, if he's inhaled, he's have relaxed and delivered the lines right.

# posted by

Dorothy King : 2:36 AM

My, My, the moonbatts are out for this post.

Stop defending the indefensible. Kerry's speech taken as it was spoken is a direct affront to the troops.

Giving this the most charitable outcome Kerry f....d up a simple statement originally designed to attack Bush's intelligence.

He then attacked anyone who complained about this simple statement. Finally he gave a Durbanised apology by apologising if anyone misinterpreted what he said.

That Kerry has a long history of denigrating the troops is what caused the uproar.

Liar, maybe not in this case.

I take the view that Kerry read what was written and left off the last part of the speech because what he said actually reflected his views. Just another Kerryism.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:40 AM

I agree that Kerry probably just made a mistake in reading his prepared remarks. What I found worst about the whole incident is that Kerry didn't apologize initially (his first statement after the denunciations was "I apologize to no one").

It seems to me that what a good, decent human being does when he unintentionally insults or injures someone is apologize. They say something like - "I'm sorry that I unintentionally insulted you. It was not what I meant to do or say. What I meant to say was..." Kerry's indignation and failure to understand that his words as delivered were an insult is what was most shocking. And he should've been the first to apologize for them. That is what a decent human being would have done.

# posted by

Daniel : 8:11 AM

How do we know that the "prepared remarks" read as they were purported to later? It would be typical to come up with such a text as a plausible excuse. It's not that Democrats haven't cobbled up the "fake but accurate" before. And it is no excuse, as we all know. Bush studied at least as hard as Kerry at school, judging by academic performance. So, if academic performance is the standard, why should anyone vote for Kerry over Bush? Why would anyone think John Kerry would have done better than Bush in dealing with the threat of terror? And how can anyone observing this scenario consider Bush less articulate or less smart than Kerry?

# posted by

Robert : 9:20 AM

Apologies are important. They are the sinews of our social fabric.

Now that the GOP has its pound of flesh and we can add Senator John Kerry to the official list of all time, perhaps a moment to make a list of other apologies that are due and owing, most likely.

Now that we know that Bush, his Administration, and his CIA Director were so wrong on the facts and so derelict in their preparations for securing the peace,
Bush and his Administration owes apologies to:

-Mary A. Wright, FO, State Department, whose resignation letter after a few decades or so of service now looks like a prophecy.
-John Brady Kiesling, also of the State Department, for similar reasons.
-John H. Brown, as a matter of good conscience and duty to the Flag and to the Republic for which it stands.

(Those are just the ones I know).

To the students in Pasedena, California, for sending them the message, "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can ... " screw-up fabulously as director of the CIA and still get the President to award you the Medal of Freedom, because fealty is more important than loyalty is more important than education ...

To Richard Gere, in his capacity as spokesperson for the world on occasion (yuk, yuk), for putting troops into a situation in which they cannot use overwhelming force and with zero margin for error, given the steep exit costs.

I'd just assume have them now, rather than wait for the nebulous 'judgment of History'.

...

# posted by

Amicus : 9:27 AM

Kerry did not apologize for his comment - he only said he was sorry if it offended anyone. His true colors shine through once again. I will always wonder why the great state of Mass continues to keep him employed.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:07 AM

Tut,Tut my boy! Surely you know WaPo's rule about concealing sources.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:19 PM

Liberals disdain the military, but the common folks are more in tune with wanting to be protected from the guys who would cut their heads off. So long as the libs feel the way they do about so-jers, the U.S. electorate will never trust them with the Commander in Chief's job, and Kerry's faux pas probably had more profound consequences than has been seen initially. Hillary, remember, had military officers serving canopes in the White House, and is known to be a so-jer scoffer, too. Unless we really smash the jihadists soon, the Democrats' chances for the brass ring are not good at all in 2008. They also have been fighting SDI for 25 years. Their strategy has been very stupid both for the purpose of regaining political power and for the purpose of defending the United States.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10:02 PM

I don't think Kerry meant to insult people, but that is no exuse for the predictable nonsense on this thread.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:27 AM

It's endlessly amusing how thoroughly exguru believes the kayfabe.

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:48 PM

I think Kerry didnt wanted to offend anyone. He just said what he thought was the truth. In his world vision that is shared by many of his political friends: military is a bunch of poor kids that didnt had any better place to go...He clumsly just went a step further and due to the place he was
just did a school lesson...

I think Kerry is lying now.

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:26 PM

Unfortunately, Hitchens is out making a fool of himself on the WSJ opinion online about Kerry.

First, one has to question his judgement about what he saw in Hugh Hewitt. I've admired the incisiveness of much of Hitch's thinking, but honestly, is Christopher that hard up for good press these days?

Second, his skills as a sociologist in reading through his Hewitt inbox appear to have been left at the pub.

Why doesn't Hitch stop to ask whether the Patrician perception may, in fact, be wrong. (How many patrician democrats as there anyway, in the party - what does that really mean? If you read through Kerry's biography, one gets about as clear sense as they come that Kerry is probably more anti-establishment than some of those he calls "grunts" or "dogfaces").

Third, CH should really visit Hewitt's website. There he will find the self-proclaimed friend of the military, Hugh, prominently showing off a disgusting picture, apparently for several days now, of several hopelessly unprofessional soldiers from the MN national guard making political statements in uniform, in a brazen attempt to politicize the military in service of vote getting for the GOP.

In such circumstances, one can only ask, is CH a Hewitt useful idiot?

# posted by

Amicus : 11:26 PM