Another High Quality Massachusetts Politician

Giving his all in the doomed battle to elect Phil Angelides governor of California, my Senator, John F. Kerry, found the right note to rally Democratic loyalists:

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.

The audio is here. And here's the video.




As long time readers will know, my brother, an MD, is currently serving in Baghdad.

Kerry explains it all:

Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

"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. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have…

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men…"

I am completely convinced that John Kerry meant to make a bad joke about President Bush, rather than a gratuitous insult aimed at the troops. So having made a stupid slip of the tongue, he immediately started digging himself an even deeper hole.