John Kerry reminded us today just how he lost the 2004 presidental election to George W. Bush. He said the following while speaking to college kids at Pasadena City College:
“You know, 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. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
Republicans immediately made the leap that Kerry was saying that troops in Iraq are in Iraq because they are dumb. Because they did not try hard in school. Kerry responded by saying that he was not refering to the troops, but to Bush. The man who got us into Iraq under false pretenses and has no plan for getting us out.
Kerry was trying to say that Bush was an idiot.
I highly doubt the Kerry was trying to say that military service members are dumb. He is just an awful public speaker. He says things in a way that Republicans can easily pounce on and misconstrue. This is the man that said, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
If Kerry wants to point out that Bush is an idiot, he needs to clearly say so.
Raven
/ November 1, 2006I think that part of being John Kerry involves believing that insinuating someone is dumb is classier than stating it explicitly. And I suppose it gives the media a longer and cleverer sound bite when it works out.
It seems like this is some sort of Rorschach test for politics – to Democrats it’s obvious he is ripping on Bush (and, since that is his entire platform, it’s not unreasonable to make that assumption), but to anyone else the words say “soldiers are dumb”.
The man either needs to either hire or fire a speech writer.