Kerry's krazy komments, postmortem

To paraphrase Kerry: "I'm not apologizing for jack. Besides, this whole brouhaha is the GOP's fault." Sure, François...Rush made you stick your foot in your mouth. That Rove is more brilliant than I thought he was! He demonically possessed Kerry and made him utter those slanderous comments, thus giving us our "October surprise"! Rove, you evil magnificent b#stard! For those of you on the left, everything after the first sentence was sarcasm.

Some on the left are furiously spinning Kerry's troops-slandering comments as a "botched joke". Boy, did I miss that punchline or what?

Others on the left are petrified that this may negatively impact their chances in next week's elections, allowing the GOP to (accurately) portray Democrats as being reflexively anti-troop. Some Dem candidates are asking him to cancel campaign appearances. A Dem Congressman said: "I guess Kerry wasn't content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too." An offended mother whose son was killed in Iraq suggests Kerry get educated himself on military matters.

Predictably, the MSM is doing their part at damage control. Especially the NY Slimes...surprise, surprise. Not to mention the AP's chief Kerry shill, Jennifer Loven.

I watched CNN last night (hey, it was on the TV in front of the treadmill at the gym, so it's not like I had a choice), and James Carville was debating Bay Buchanan on, among other things, Kerry's slander. Carville said it was a bad joke, nothing more. Carville and Buchanan also debated the Virginia Senate race, and the "macaca" reference came up...at which point Carville said that the utterance of "macaca" was proof that Allen was a bigot.

Then it dawned on me: if I'm understanding the left correctly here, Kerry's slander was a "botched joke" and not indicative of any latent disdain for the troops (his shameful anti-defense voting record, Winter Soldier, "we need to stop terrorizing Iraqi women and children", etc., behavior notwithstanding); BUT Allen's "botched joke" wasn't a joke but a Freudian slip that was indicative of his latent disdain for people of color? I guess that whole "botched joke" thingy only applies to Dems who have stepped in it, right?

By the way, Dean Barnett has a great post on the Kerry kerfuffle. Please read it, as it's not long. Excerpt:

Then there’s the further matter that the left’s attitude towards the troops (that they so enthusiastically support) has often been marked by condescension. On the Daily Kos front page this morning, DemFromCT (if that’s his real name) titled a post, “103 of Our Children Died in Iraq This Month.” Somehow I doubt the men and women who defend our country would be thrilled with the characterization “children.”

DemFromCT acknowledges that it might indeed be offensive to call our military members “children,” but defends this stylistic decision by saying, “For those who are offended by referring to the military as children, remember that every soldier, airman and Marine has a parent.” Even by Daily Kos standards, that’s some weak stuff. The point is that when John Kerry offers the opinion that the soldiers in Iraq are dim bulbs, it’s part of a larger mosaic.

And then of course there’s the hostility towards the troops. John Kerry’s history of animus towards the troops hardly needs recounting. It’s also worth noting that when a politician refers to the troops as baby-killers or offers some similar slander, the politician doing the slandering is almost invariably a member of the Democratic Party.

But hey...they "support the troops", right?