John Kerry's Botched Joke
Thursday November 2, 2006
When he ran for president in 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) rarely missed an opportunity to crack a few jokes about President Bush.
One of his better lines came after being told by reporters that Bush had taken a tumble during a bike ride. "Did the training wheels fall off?" Kerry quipped.
This week, however, he botched a Bush punch line so badly, that it may qualify as the political gaffe of the year. Speaking to college students in California, Kerry said, "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." (Watch video clip)
The remark provoked a torrent of criticism from Republicans who were quick to take it out of context and broadcast it as a slam on U.S. troops, rather than on Bush. A group of soldiers in Iraq countered with an amusing dig back at Kerry, posing for a picture while holding a banner reading "Halp us Jon Carry - We R stuck hear n Irak."
Here's the joke as it was supposed to be delivered: "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."
Either way, it shows why political humor should be left to the professionals.
Speaking of botched jokes, Bush has yet to aplogize for this disastrous comedy routine, in which he joked about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq.
Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandiv looks at how Bush and his administration are better at executing jokes.
• Related: John Kerry Jokes | Kerry Pictures | Bush Jokes | Iraq Jokes
Comments
The joke could not have been about President Bush as Kerry knows that Bush out scored him on college entrance exams- a fact reluctantly released by dinosaur media during the last election. Additionally, the joke would lack any logic and premise as our President has two college degrees from Yale and Harvard. Kerry had a Freudian slip and simply displayed the condesending attitude toward the military he, most liberals and the dinosaur media have had for decades.
So, to deconstruct your logic, Kerry would never make fun of Bush because he knows Bush is smarter than him. Brilliant insight. What color is the sky in your world?
John sKerry has this to look forward to:
the flowers/turf on his grave will be “watered” well
RE: John Kerry’s “botched joke”
The U. S. Senator speaking to our California students was gracious enough to provide an example simplifying “The Commandments of John Kerry” enabling conservative Christians too understand him better. Can we have him speak more often?
The Commandments of John Kerry
1. Thou shall substitute stereotyping, of a distinguished select group of people, to fill the void caused by a lack of substance in your argument.
2. Thou shall profile, every person making up the complete entity, with denigrating remarks to project superiority on your part.
3. Thou shall insult the intelligence of others to show those before you, who are faced with a decision, what could happen to them on this world stage if they chose to disagree with you.
4. Thou shall insinuate that the choice of an individual was not a choice at all; planting the idea that you will also be viewed as an ignorant person if you don’t think like I do.
5. Thou shall instill self consciousness in young naive listeners, who are awestruck by a real life U. S. Senator, implying that you will also be viewed as stuck in one of life’s flee infested arm pits of the world, completely helpless and not in control of the situation if you don’t think like I want you to.
6. Thou shall increase the use of rhetoric concealing insufficient power to handle the circumstances.
7. Thou shall intentionally belittle and terrorize innocent minds to subsidize your obsession for power, glory and fame.
The real joke here is watching Kurtzman twist himself into a pretzel making excuses for Kerry’s obvious insult to our service men and women.
There was nothing “misinterpreted”, the comment was patently wrong and offensive. It was meant just as it sounded.
Nice try Daniel, but nobody with the slightest shred of objectivity is buying your act here.
It should be perfectly clear to anyone but the most blind and willfully ignorant right-wing partisans that Kerry was joking about President Bush, and not the troops. Keith Olbermann summed it up better than I can in his Special Comment the other day, which can be seen here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=81XCDgPgjd8
A partial transcript:
Sen. Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial.
He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education — that “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.”
The senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid.
The context was unmistakable: Texas; the state of denial; stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required.
And Mr. Bush and his minions responded by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.
They demanded Kerry apologize to the troops in Iraq.
And so he now has.
That phrase — “appearing to be too stupid” — is used deliberately, Mr. Bush.
Because there are only three possibilities here.
One, sir, is that you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics have suggested; that you could not follow the construction of a simple sentence; that you could not recognize your own life story when it was deftly summarized; that you could not perceive it was the sad ledger of your presidency that was being recounted.
This, of course, compliments you, Mr. Bush, because even those who do not “make the most of it,” who do not “study hard,” who do not “do their homework,” and who do not “make an effort to be smart” might still just be stupid, but honest.
No, the first option, sir, is, at best, improbable. You are not honest.
The second option is that you and those who work for you deliberately twisted what Sen. Kerry said to fit your political template; that you decided to take advantage of it, to once again pretend that the attacks, solely about your own incompetence, were in fact attacks on the troops or even on the nation itself.
The third possibility is, obviously, the nightmare scenario: that the first two options are in some way conflated.
That it is both politically convenient for you and personally satisfying to you, to confuse yourself with the country for which, sir, you work.
A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.
You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political; to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn’t about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either, that the insult, in fact, is you.
So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans’ deliberate distortions.
Thus, the president will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?
This president must apologize to the troops for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, “look like just a comma.”
This president must apologize to the troops because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.
This president must apologize to the troops for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence at a banquet while our troops were in harm’s way.
This president must apologize to the troops because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.
This president must apologize to the troops because his administration ran out of “plan” after barely two months.
This president must apologize to the troops for getting 2,815 of them killed.
This president must apologize to the troops for getting this country into a war without a clue.
And Mr. Bush owes us an apology for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.
We will not receive them, of course.
This president never apologizes.
Not to the troops.
Not to the people.
Nor will those henchmen who have echoed him.
John Kerry’s comments were not a bothced joke. They were a successful insult of the military. The military that John Kerry has tirelessly fought to undermine ever since he filed for his own Purple Heart in Vietnam.
The only thing that was bothced here was logic and truth (By Dan Kurtzman). Kurtzman is typical of the lefty media that bends over backwards to defend elitist, traitorous snobs like Kerry.
People like Kurtzman and Kerry don’t have the personal honesty to admit that they are not smart enough to recognize America’s mortal enemies, even when they are looking them in the eye.
I love the fact that this is the only issue you righties have to run on in this election. Can’t talk about Iraq becuse it’s a disaster. Can’t talk about anything this Congress has achieved, other than covering up for a pedophile. Can’t run on the so-called great economy because no one’s buying that BS either.
So what’s the solution? Try to rerun the 2004 election and Swift Boat John Kerry all over again.
Fortunately, voters are smarter than you all give them credit for, which is why you’re all going to have a very rude awakening come next Tuesday.
“I don’t remember anything being as shamelessly distorted as Kerry’s hapless attempt to tell a feeble joke about Bush’s I.Q.” –Christopher Hitchens
From Tom Friedman, writing in the New York Times:
George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.
They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.
Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.
They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.
Kurtzman puhlease!! Olberman is also a joke and should go back to ESPN and report on something he knows about. The Military guys in the pic arent just a few. Their sentiment is felt by the majority in the military. Dont be intellectually dishonest with yourself gentlemen. Kerry is a loser as is Al Gore……A SORE LOSER
I doubt this joke was botched it all. The troops may take it as an insult, but we find it almost impossible in this country to talk about how lack of opportunity feeds enlistees into the service. If we instituted a draft and the children or grandchildren of representatives and senators were sent to Iraq, the war would end in weeks.
As it is, we find a certain class of society expendable enough to send them out in an open-ended war with no clear objective and no clear boundaries (and cut their salaries and benefits while they’re out). If they’re mainly poor or mainly working class or mainly non-white or ideally, all of the above, we’re okay if they get chewed up protecting our oil outposts. How can this possibly be confusing?
How is your comment confusing, BK? How is it confusing that a “certain class of society” is in the war? It’s confusing because many, many of the men (and women) in Iraq have PLENTY of opportunity. Thousands of military reserve service persons who have jobs, education, and lots of opportunity are serving in Iraq.
I love it when liberals talk about “oil outposts” like only conservatives need oil! Haha. The last time I checked our country would come to a screeching halt if we didn’t have oil, wouldn’t matter if you’re a liberal or a conservative. Oil, unfortunately, is critically important to the day-to-day operations of this nation. It isn’t just people in SUVs that need oil. It ships medical supplies, creates plastics, oh crap I’m not going to list all the things we need oil for besides people driving in cars (as if that isn’t enough). The point is WE NEED OIL, all of us. Shut down the oil pipeline to this country and all the sudden you would no longer be “confused”, BK. You’d be sitting at home in the dark saying, “Uh, gee whiz, I guess oil is important!”
Shame on your Kurtzman, for trying to spin Kerry’s comment. You run your head endlessly about the conservative spin machine and then jump right in with your own brand over Kerry’s gaffe. It’s quite clear from Kerry’s history of railing on the military (and the men and women who serve in it) that he has great disdain for the folks serving in our military. Sad.