Talking to a group at Pasadena City College yesterday, John Kerry said,
You know, education — if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. (Source.)
Doesn’t sound like Kerry thinks much of the military. According to his thinking, the military is filled with those who don’t study hard, don’t do their homework, don’t make an effort to be smart.
But wait, that’s not what he meant to say. He was speaking from prepared remarks and had intended to attack President Bush rather than the military. According to his spokesperson, Kerry was supposed to say,
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. (Source.)
Wow, Kerry certainly has problems following the script. And why would Kerry attack Bush for not studying? Has he already forgotten that Bush’s grades were better than his?
But, let’s give Kerry the benefit of the doubt. After all, as Kerry says,
If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. (Source.)
Kerry does have past experience critizing soldiers and the government. Yet, Kerry refuses to apologize to the military for what he claims to be a misstatement.
How hard can it be to say, “I’m sorry”?
Update: You can watch it yourself.
(Troubles watching video? Watch it at YouTube.)
Maybe 37 years from now, an Australian computer programmer will discover the missing syllables to find Kerry actually said, “You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.”
Update 2 (Nov 1, 2006): Kerry apologizes.
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John Kerry is also “stuck on Vietnam” and the 60’s - where - if you didn’t go to college and make your grades, you got drafted. I think this explanation fits Kerry’s words better than simply “a quip gone awry” that was meant for Bush.
Nice site. Great post.
I think the republicans are clutching at straws, there is real anger about the direction of the USA at many levels, not only the war, but also inequality.
Soldiers are mostly from poor families, especially in the USA. Why is that? Why aren’t rich kids going off to war? What kind of democracy allows this to happen?
The fact that the poor are usually not very educated (some are stupid some are normal but none have made the most of their talents by working low paid jobs) reflects the fact that most higher education in the US is very expensive and private. Poor people are mostly excluded from it. The big change now is that unlike the past if you don’t have a college degree you are unlikely to get a good job, and blue collar jobs are going to China Mexico and India, making the rich people that own the companies exporting those jobs richer (shareholders are included in this).
Increasingly middle income americans are affected too, mostly through their children. Sometimes as there are no good jobs to go to to live like a human being, people are forced to go to the army as it offers training and the only viable career…
Some become criminals… some become cleaners etc..
Whereas C students like Bush succeed based on their parents money not their own efforts, so this is hardly meritocracy. I wouldn’t call Bush a smart man. I think he has outsourced the thinking to other unelected people which is a problem in a democracy.
As we live in a world were the rich can avoid the army, saying that poor people are the ones fighting the war is not a lie… Just think about it…
Both Bush and Cheney avoided going to Vietnam by Bush getting his rich family to intervene for him to guard the fearsome invaders in Texas (i.e. nobody), always at the ready from the bar, armed with several bottles of alcohol. Whereas Cheney used his university study as a reason not to go to Vietnam.
If they had fought in a war i would have much more time in listening to Bush or Cheney talk about the necessity of war, the reality is neither has experienced it… and they talk far too much about it.
George, you’re stuck in the same time warp as Kerry. We don’t have a draft and the poor are not overrepresented in the military.
It’s amazing how the Kerry defenders want to talk about anything except Kerry’s statement. Either Kerry meant what he said or he didn’t. If he didn’t, why doesn’t he apologize for the misstatement? If he did… As I said — stupid.