News-Record.com

Allen,

Please, Kerry said exactly what he meant to say, he just didn't expect the ramifications that would come. He looked at his notes, just before he said "you'll be stuck in Iraq". He said exactly what he intended to say. If he had flubbed his line, he would have corrected himself immediately, and he didn't.

Friedman can huff all that chooses, but Kerry has raised the ire of members of the military and their families, before Bush said anything. Kerry has set something in motion that he should not have. Kerry has a long record of saying abusive things about members of the military, going back to 1971. His presidential ambitions are DOA.

Perhaps, you should ask teh military what they think, rather than a New York Times columnist. We all know where they stand.

And, if he was making a joke, what was it? How do you get anything different than what he said. His statement said that others misrepresented his comments to imply something negative....or whatever. Sorry, he said what he meant to say. It's right in line with his 1971 testimony to Congress. He thinks that people that serve in the military in a time of war are stupid...or members of the Genghis Kahn Horde.

"The Friedman column will appear Monday in the News & Record."

A good chunk of the online folks have passed that link around with fervor today. Friedman, one of the reasons most of us squawked when the N&R dropped the NY Times columnists, got it right.

Even though the MSM was complicit in creating a mountain out of a joke-gone-bad, the administration's coordinated attack mode response effort was tragic to witness. With nothing but scandals on their plate, this election must taste pretty bitter to the Bush administration at this point.

How very sad that the only 'substance' President Bush could muster was an orchestrated attack on a second-rate comment about a first-rate military and human disaster. How very sad.

With a guy like Friedman as their sooperstar the NY Times is becoming an irrelevant joke and dropping like a stone in readership.

Silly

"The Friedman column will appear Monday in the News & Record."

We should expect nothing less from the premier liberal mouthpiece in our community.

Although I'm partially with Friedman on the question of military planning--I think we should have conducted a far more violent war with real shock and awe than the happy "everyone naturally loves democracy let's give out soccer balls" pseudo-war that, in retrospect, was bound to fail in a culture that only understands violence, I think he is dead wrong about Bush's rhetoric. Compared with that of his opponents, who are routinely and crudely insulting, Bush has conducted himself well. Put the quotations side-by-side and tell me it ain't so.

I can't remember Bush engaging in insulting comments about his opponents or those who oppose his policies. With all the crap that's said about him in my opinion he remains quite unflappable.

Bush was very justified in commenting in an indignant manner to Kerry's unfortunate childish comments regarding the men and women who serve in our military.

Kerry has had a history of negative remarks about military service and had claimed in the early 70's, as I recall, that all troops that served in the forward lines in Vietnam had engaged in war crimes.

The Democratic 2004 Presidential nominee has eliminated himself from the 2008 race. Hillary is probably thinking, thanks John, I'm one step closer to the big one.

You know what Kerry said is really of no consequence as it is Bush and the neocons who are sending our sons and daughter to die in a war they created to fulfil their own sick vanity.

Stormy

So, you are sure Kerry was absolutely NOT trying to tag the PRESIDENT for being a poor student who then gets himself and the country stuck in Iraq? You think Kerry was trying to directly say that all soldiers fighting in Iraq were lousy students who didn;t work hard and thus deserve to get stuck in Iraq?

Kerry is pretty lame for even trying such a lousy joke, of course. It is perfect fodder for Bush and Cheney, who know they can play the "we are more patriotic" card against Democrats, even as they say out of the other side of their twisted smiles that they aren't saying that. Liars, liars, liars. Anyone who actually falls for their shameful is clearly deluding themselves.

I think we're all presumptuous to pretend we know what Kerry intended to say, for better, or for worse.
The point is, he said it poorly. The bigger point is, the Iraq invasion and occupation by any objective measure have been poorly planned and executed.
And it concerns me that many people who question this policy have been painted as not supporting the troops.
Bad, ill-conceived policy based on ignorance and arrogance is more injurious to troops than any protest.
Howard Coble has been 100 percent right on this one.

Kerry wasn't, I think, trying to say anything about the soldiers in Iraq. He wasn't even thinking about them. What he was doing was winking at his audience: do your homework unless you want to end up like THOSE GUYS.

That's what's offensive about the comment.

"I can't remember Bush engaging in insulting comments about his opponents or those who oppose his policies."

That's true .. he has the Good Cop / Bad Cop thing down .. or more accurately Karl and the Machine do ... Check out they '94 campaign against lesbian gov' Ann Richards, or the campaign against that unpatriotic Max Cleland.

"Kerry .. claimed ... that all troops that served in the forward lines in Vietnam had engaged in war crimes."

No - he claimed SOME did .. and some did. The same claim can now be made about Iraq .. some did.

Get your facts straight, please; or do you beleive the story about Ann Richards too?

... and how did Kerry get the '04 nod or even reelected .. what a Looser, and I'm not kidding.

Choose between a manipulative crowd of cronies or a disorganized bunch that can't even say what it means let alone mean what it say's. Jeexe, no wonder America is in the pickle jar on several fronts.

This reminds me of a well-documented incident with then-VP Al Gore.
He had his son in the office and was severely dressing him down for his poor performance in college.
Fuming, Al Gore pointed to his Secret Service bodyguards (the hand-picked elite of law enforcement, and college graduates, as are all Federal special agents) and angrily growled, "Do you want to end up like them??"