Since my husband is the smartest man I know (go on, Erin, tell 'em what a genius he is), I have been seething today about what John Kerry said. I kept trying to think of something ba-zing to pimpslap him with, but other than a list of all the soldiers I know and how smart they are, I wasn't coming up with anything. Turns out I don't need to, because others have done the job for me. Head over to Michelle Malkin's to watch Kerry look like an elitist douche and then read all the hatemail that's pouring in.
And what Kerry said -- “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” -- ain't exactly the most eloquent sentence I've ever heard. Good thing he spent top-dollar on that prissy degree of his.
Posted by Sarah at October 31, 2006 12:22 PM | TrackBackKerry, not nuanced enough to articulate on matters of education? Say it isn't so!
Kerry is actually right. Read "The dumbing-down of the U.S. Army" at slate magazine. (It's at slate dot com, but I can't post the link here.)
The scary thing to me is how the declining recruitment standards are going to eventually impact a high-tech army.
Posted by: Will at October 31, 2006 05:03 PMWill -- Well, maybe the solution to "dumbing down" is convincing our youth that the military is still an honorable endeavor with many benefits...not Kerry's "only retards join" nonsense.
Posted by: Sarah at October 31, 2006 05:56 PMWow. That is elitist. I find it funny that this is coming from the same guy who tried to use the military and his service as a veteran in vietnam to win votes back in 2004.
Posted by: Nicole at October 31, 2006 06:02 PMNo, Will, Kerry is wrong. You are acting as if Kerry was making allusions to the lower recruitment standards. He wasn't. He was saying that smart people don't end up in the army. Educated people don't end up in the army. Only stupid people go to the army.
If he is admonishing someone to study up, or they will end up in the Army, he is basically saying the Army is a dead end, last resort.
What about the people who follow his advice, and study up, but still decide to join the Army? According to Kerry, they couldn't possibly exist, because only the uneducated "end up" in the military.
I don't see how you can interpret this otherwise.
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at October 31, 2006 06:04 PMWell if you want to discuss the actual statement, please note that Kerry said "in Iraq," NOT "in the army" or "in the military." To rational people, this implies that he's making a dig at the current conflict, not the US army as a whole. Bush demanding an apology is an act of desperation.
Posted by: Will at October 31, 2006 06:33 PMYeah, OK, so my husband is working on an MBA, and he's "ending up" in Iraq for the second time. Maybe he should study harder...
Posted by: Sarah at October 31, 2006 06:35 PMWill,
He is reffering to Iraq, not the military?
Perhaps you understand now why people say it is difficult to support the troops, but not their effort in Iraq.
You basically just said, it is okay to diss all the soldiers, because it is referring to Iraq.
Soldiers can't pick and choose where they go. They sometimes get sent to unpopular wars. That doesn't justify Kerry insulting their choice of career, by insinuating that only those without a college education join up.
And while we are at it: what is with all this elitism? I am the only child of 4, who went to college, but I would in no way think that I am any smarter or even better off than my brothers.
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at October 31, 2006 07:59 PMYou don't need a Yale education to know who won the 2004 election.
Posted by: Greg Schreiber at October 31, 2006 08:01 PMGo read the transcript. Kerry isn't insulting the troops, he's insulting the president, which I suppose, to a conservative, is just as bad.
The poeple will have their say next week, and this Prez will have his ass handed to him.
Well and Sarah, When Dick Armey agrees with Chris Matthews that Kerry is insulting Bush rather than our troops,well sigh! just sigh. you believe what you have to believe.Let's all get outraged about something!
Posted by: Rob Roberts at October 31, 2006 10:17 PMRR said "The poeple will have their say next week, and this Prez will have his ass handed to him."
The last time I looked this year isn't a presidential election year. The votes aren't about President Bush...at least not among intelligent voters who recognize that voting on issues is more important than voting on who any one candidate is "friends" with.
Posted by: Peg at November 1, 2006 12:13 AMTo the dissenters--do you mean to suggest that Kerry's line was meant to target Bush, or are you saying that it did target only Bush? The first might be somewhat defensible (although I am not buying it), but any standard of evidence weak enough to support the second is so watered down as to be totally useless. I think our military personnel and those that support them have every right to be infuriated at both this mangled remark and the subsequent lack of apology, especially given Kerry's checkered history on the subject.
Posted by: Piercello at November 1, 2006 08:57 AMI laughed all day at Kerry's feeble attempts to back out of his statements...he's making fun of the President, he's making a statement about the current conflict....???? What a train wreck. He needs to apologize, period.
Posted by: Nicole at November 1, 2006 06:26 PMPeg, Glad to see that you retained my misspelling of "Poeple" without comment.
I Predict that November 7, will give us one of three outcomes:
1. You will keep both chambers of congress.
2.you will lose both chambers.
3.you will lose one and keep the other.
You can quote me on all of this.
No matter what happens on November 7, Bush's lame duck status begins on November 8. The Republicans can't run from hiim fast enough.