Kerry is Rove's October Surprise!

I have been looking for the text of the entire speech. Has anyone seen it?

And zooeyglass14, welcome to ATS.

Man of them are...

The 2 main reasons people join the armed forces is to get a cheap college or because they really are not succeeding in the "real world". My step brother is in Iraq now, and he used to be a drug dealer and dropped out of school and got his GED, the army was his only option that he saw.

Not everyone is like this, but I believe most are. Most kids joining are kids who did bad in school and/or are too poor to afford college.

It must be those Iraq glasses you're wearing. I hadn't mentioned it!

[edit on 31-10-2006 by HimWhoHathAnEar]


mod edit, fix quote tags

[edit on 31-10-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Well lets face it, the military is the opprotunity of last resort for many lower middle class and poor kids, the very ones who generally speaking don't excel in school to begin with. And, the recruiters know this and focus on exactly those kids. You see those recruiters at the malls, video arcades and unemployment offices everywhere trolling for the young and the unsettled.

Its always how militaries have been consituited. The upper classes become the officers and the lower classes the ones who die.

Doesn't mean that they aren't fine kids or fine military either, just that their horizons were more limited. It is whether you are hampered by those limitations or exceed them is the mark of your character.

The average person that joins the military, they're not turning down great job offers in other fields, but they're also patriotic and brave. They might not be the most successful people in the country, but there's lots of people like that, the heroic ones join the army. Lets stop insulting them out of hand.

Regardless of whether you think Kerry was trying to make a joke or insult the military, you have to admit that it was a pretty stupid thing to even try just before an important national election. For someone who is supposedly a savvy politician, saying that kind of thing is like trying to defuse a land mine when you don't really need to. Better off to not say anything that "might" be interpreted wrongly.

It's funny that he even has ambitions for another White House run. You especially don't say things like he did if you are planning to run again. Why anger military and veteran families? You don't see too many national Democratic leaders saying "He will get it done next time" do you? They are not exactly clamoring for Kerry to mount another run.

Here we go.

Another classic example that Kerry works for Bush and the Republicans. His running for president was FAKE and now, he says something like this...to make fools out of Democrats.

I see how this is working, dont you??????????

Frankenstein's done it again- help the Republican party by being an idiot. On purpose.

The enlisted members of our military are following orders from the college educated officers.

I can see where he was probably trying to make a joke that Mr. Bush is uneducated and that is why we are in Iraq. The man should stick to his day job and leave comedy to the professionals.

No one joins the military thinking that they will die. Death comes to the educated and uneducated alike. While the military is an option, it is only one option. There are many others. I continued my college education while in the Navy. The military is a group of individuals as diverse as the members of this site.

The Army lowers it's educational requirements to join, in order to get more people to go to Iraq, but everyone is mad when someone mentions it? What is it, a secret?

And since Bush was born and raised in Vermont. Went to the most expensive, elite schools all his life and used his family to not get 'stuck' in Vietnam, he shouldn't really be criticize others who aren't rich enough, and are unable to get out of getting 'stuck' in stupid wars.

Curme, Bush didn't critize any soldiers, Kerry, who comes from a long line of "Boston Bhramins", was the one insulting the soldiers.

The army lowered its testing requirements for enlisted men.

Anyone that enlists still has to be patriotic and brave enough to be willing to fight for the US. Everyone knows that becoming an enlisted soldier usually isn't the best career move, so its only going to be appealing in the first place to people that aren't doing so great anyway. But it still requires that they be brave enough to do it, they shouldn't be called 'idiots' because of that.

Kerry was trying to make an anti-war comment to a college audience, and it didn't work well, it ended up sounding more 'anti-soldier' than anything. I seriously doubt that Kerry hates enlisted men, but it reads like an insult.

People are upset because they don't like it when people say 'our soldiers are a bunch of dumbasses who can't hack it in real life'.

Thanks again John!! I was worried you were going to be able to control yourself this time, but nope.

-- Boat

Lets face it, HE DID insult those in the armed forces this time. I dont care where he was coming from, what he said was uncalled for and ignorant.

And I say he's nothing but setting up the Democrats to look foolish- an uncalled for comment that would insult the masses. He works for Bush & Rove. I wish he'd keep his big mouth shut.

A nice suit and tie does not a good politician make. Horseface.

I personally don't care what Kerry said. It's his opinion, he has a right to say it and I understand where he was coming from. The military service IS a viable alternative to getting an education, regardless how painful that might be to some people here. And they continue to lower their qualifications. And if someone joins the military, there's a good chance they'll go to Iraq, or worse yet, Iran or someplace else to be in miserable conditions and they may die. Whatever.

What completely blows my mind here is that Kerry's little faux pas is considered such a travesty against the honorable and brave military men, but Bush can send these same people to die in a war based on lies, without any regard to their safety and he comes out smelling like a freaking rose as he demeans Kerry for his WORDS.



It absolutely tweaks my brain that Bush can kill these young people for no good reason, but if Kerry utters a word about their intelligence level, HE's the bad guy!

Where are your priorities?? Just how caught up are you in the political machine that would spin this incident to make Kerry's WORDS so much worse that Bush's murderous actions???

That's just totally whacked!

You certainly have a point there, BH. However, if you go back to the Skull & Bones brothers, you will see clearly, imo, that Kerry works for Bush.

To come out now and say what he said is purposely making trouble for the Democrats is at the very least extremely ignorant...that is....unless it was meant to be ignorant to help Bush and the Republican party.

Freedom of speech is different than freedom of ignorance. Kerry is not a dumb man by any means, so it makes me wonder why the comment.

And now he's hiding?

Please, this is all for show.

Well said BH, this is just a mistake by Kerry and the right is trying to take advantage of it. What also tweaks my brain is that something like this would actually have an effect on this election even though JK is not running. They say this could get the republican base fired up and go out and vote, when they would have stayed home. If people are that shallow and this affects their voting, then that is sad to say the least.

Hal,

Therefore, one could only assume that given the fact that Kerry is an intelligent man, he said it on purpose to help the fellow bonesmen.

Of course, who's gonna tell?

Kerry was there for "show" for the elections and now Kerry is there to help out the Republicans- A Democrat in drag

I dont trust that man- never have, never will. The Demcrats want to kill him- if only they could find him.

Bush isn't on the ballot and Kerry's always been a liberal, so I don't think he'd scuttle the '06 elections just to make Bush's life a bit easier.

Kerry is just a dope who's a gift that keeps on giving to the Republicans IMHO.

Actually, sorry for all you people rubbing one out over this, Kerry was again calling Bush an Idiot and being an Idiot he and all of his followers missed the joke. Since Bush admitted he didn't know about Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds all living in Iraq. Or it was in the Middle East, or that the Iraqis might not like having their children raped, and that they might not lay down and take it when another country invades them. In fact Kerry even said after the speech he was calling Bush an idiot.

All you people screaming he called the army idiots need to put down the kool aid and listen to the person who said the quote and not Fox News which is still reporting about nuclear weapons in Iraq.

Kerry told reporters in Seattle, Washington, that the remark was a "botched joke" meant to target the president, not U.S. troops.
"The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe," the Massachusetts senator said. "It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics."
www.cnn.com...

“I think people will remember John Kerry’s press conference today as the moment we Democrats stopped once and forever accepting the disgraceful smears of Republicans. John Kerry showed our Party how to fight back with the truth.
“John Kerry is a patriot who has fought tooth and nail for veterans ever since he came home from Vietnam. He has stood with his brothers in arms unlike this Administration which exploits our troops to make a political point and divide America.
"John Kerry should apologize to no one for his criticism of the President and his broken policy in Iraq. George Bush is the one who owes our troops an apology. This is text book Republican campaign tactics.
“Everybody knows it’s not working this time around. 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’ve got a partisan political agenda and that’s the bottom line. We’re not going to take it any more.”
blog.thedemocraticdaily.com...

At a hastily arranged news conference in Seattle, Kerry said: "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy."
Kerry said the comment in question was "a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops ... and they know that's what I was talking about."
news.yahoo.com...

"This is the classic GOP playbook," Kerry said in a harshly worded statement. "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." www.military.com...

He works for the Republicans, we have evidence of that when he ran against Bush and then cowarded without so much as a peep never bringing up the fact that Bush stole the election.

I know! Talk about being stupid! So you've decided to vote Democratic because you don't like the way things are going, you want a change, you disapprove of the war in Iraq, you're tired of being lied to, sick of pouring money into a hopeless war and you're truly concerned for your Constitutional rights...

Along comes some Senator who says a TRUE statement that people blow up and distort and take wrong and make a big deal about and you turn off your brain and decide to vote for the Republican "home team" after all??? Just to 'get back' at Kerry!?!? Like he cares!

Talk about brainless!

dg, I see what you're saying and you could very well be right. I just don't find that aspect of this issue to be the most important and influential one. We will probably never know if Kerry supports Bush. They're all the same to me...