Kerry, You ******...Follow

So Samira was right!

Yeah. Pretty much. Heard his statement and his "apology" (hint: When apologizing, don't continue to try to toss political rhetoric around at the same time). It was about what I expected. He read the speach beforehand. He knew what it said. He was trying to toss a zinger at the Bush administration and it just never occured to him that hundreds of thousands of people who serve and millions more who have served would find the comment extremely offensive.

It doesn't help at all that it feeds right into the stereotypical "liberal elitist" who insists he knows what's best for the "common man", all the while looking down his nose at those not as educated or wealthy as he is. It calls to mind that form of liberal who does his "good deeds" not out of the goodness of his heart or love of the people but because deep inside he believes that "those people" simply aren't smart or capable enough to manage their own lives so he must help them out of their own incompetance.

Not sure how big of a blunder this is for Dems in general, but it's very very telling about the Kerry/Kennedy/Pelosi style Liberals. And if there was a worst time for him to have said something like that, this was it, given that the current Republican talking point is the "Do you really want *these people* leading Congress?" argument.

Edited, Oct 31st 2006 at 2:54pm PST by gbaji

Gbaji said



Not to defend Kerry even for a moment, (or Liberals in general for that matter)
but the way you tell it doesn't seem to take into account the current situation that the republicans are perpetuating in Iraq. Mayebe they should show a modicum of respect for the opinions of the Iraqi people, two-thirds of whom want U.S. forces out of Iraq immediately, according to a poll commissioned by your Department of State. It seems the height of hubris and incongruity for U.S.Govt. to pretend, that they know far better than the Iraqis themselves what would be best for the Iraqis.


I do wonder gbaji, if the "conservatives" that you so eagerly support, are actually as conservative as you would like to think.

I would love to see Feingold get the nod for '08. I hope that Clinton and Kerry don't get the nomination though. Neither one of them inspires me with any reason to give them my vote.

It would be nice to see someone that is willing to work together and compromise with the rest of the government.

Correct. I didn't do that because it's somewhat irrelevant to the issue. The details of his attack don't really matter. He could have been talking about the uneducated ending up being "stuck as farmhands" or somesuch and it still would have been an insensitive and stupid thing to say.




Again. That's not the issue. No one's saying that Kerry should not or could not attack the Republicans on the issue of Iraq. Nor does the opinion's of the Iraqi's have *anything* to do with this issue. Kerry was talking about education in the US. Not Iraq. Not foreign anything. He essentially implied that every soldier in Iraq is an uneducated lout who's good for nothing more then cannon-fodder in a war. The popularity of that war, whether among US citizens or Iraqi citizens isn't the issue at all. It's purely about what Kerry seems to think about our military and about people who don't have a college degree in general.

And, as someone who does not have a college degree myself, it's more then a bit offensive both to imply that the *only* thing I could do is be "stuck" fighting in Iraq, and to imply that those who choose to fight in Iraq did so because they are either uneducated or unqualified to do anything else.

The correct words to use when describing a soldier serving in an active conflict are "heroic" and "patriotic", not "uneducated"...




I suppose that depends on exactly how you define "conservative".

Edited, Oct 31st 2006 at 4:04pm PST by gbaji

Cute.

What the hell are you on about?

Didn't you read what I said?

You said "It calls to mind that form of liberal who does his "good deeds" not out of the goodness of his heart or love of the people but because deep inside he believes that "those people" simply aren't smart or capable enough to manage their own lives so he must help them out of their own incompetance."

I said, isn't it strange that you see 'liberals' as the ones who believe that "people" simply aren't smart or capable enough to manage their own lives so he must help them out of their own incompetance." yet the party that you have unswerving faith in are the ones who insist on 'staying the course' in Iraq 'till the job is done', until they are all liberated and happily waving their purple fingers about in a middle eastern democracy, wether they like it or not. Wich, to labour the point somewhat, they don't.

Eh? What are *you* on about?






Um... Care to correct your "I said" statement?

I read what you wrote. Did you?

OMG learn to break the filter right, you cuntie dicks.

I have to wonder though, how long will this "smoking gun" that affects nothing outside of Kerry's state, stay in the press, as though it's really important? So what, the guy is a prick, I can't do anything to get him out of office, so why should I care? He only perpetuates the sterotype, nothing more, nothing less.

To be honest, I don't think anyone has to worry about Kerry running for president anymore, which is good. I'd hate to have to worry about my president being for giving me a tax cut before he was against it, just to get my hopes up.

By the way, am I the only one who has paid more in taxes since we got this tax "cut"?

/shrug

Hard to say. I agree with you that Kerry's statements should really only reflect his own politics. However, "guilt by association" is a pretty common political tactic. If you can argue that Republican seats are in danger this election because of Bush's policies (and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd argue otherwise), you have to acknowledge that Kerry's views and statements are going to have a similar impact (just to a lesser extent since he didn't actually win the election 2 years ago).

As I pointed out earlier, the real reason this was an idiotic move for him is because it ties almost directly into current Republican talking points. The approach they're taking right now is to point to Dems like Kerry, Kennedy, and Pelosi and paint them as a disaster if they gain power. Kerry's comments just fed directly into that since it gives them more fodder to work with.



Given that once someone fails to succeed in a presidential bid, they virtually never get a second chance from their party, I'd say that was a safe statement before this. I think the problem is wider then that though. Kerry just goofed and presented a nice example of exactly the kind of thing that Republicans accuse Dems of in terms of leadership (or lack thereof). That's going to bleed off into other Dems who are percieved to be similar in politics to Kerry. And *that's* going to hurt them in ways that go far beyond Kerry's chances to win a hypothetical future presidential bid.



Did your income go up as well? Just curious...

Who?