John Kerry Supports The Troops As Special-Education Cases [Archive] - Marine Corps

outlaw3179

10-31-06, 02:41 PM

Ok if you didnt mean to say it then your just a f*cking retard anyway.

GOP, Kerry launch war of words over Iraq comment

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republicans unleashed a firestorm of criticism Tuesday against Sen. John Kerry after the Vietnam veteran told college students they'd "get stuck in Iraq" if they didn't work hard in school.

Kerry later said the remark was a "botched joke" meant to target the president, not U.S. troops.

Before the clarification, White House press secretary Tony Snow, House Majority Leader John Boehner and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, lambasted the four-term senator and demanded he apologize. (Watch Kerry's 'botched joke' that launched the political stink -- 1:50 )

A CNN poll suggests that Iraq is the second-most important issue behind the economy as voters ponder for whom to cast their ballots in next week's midterms.

"This is an absolute insult," Snow said at a daily press briefing. "Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who've given their lives in this."

Boehner said the remark was "insulting" and called on "Democrat candidates across the country" to publicly denounce the comment.

"These Americans who are risking their lives in the fight against terrorism in Iraq deserve better than to have their service demeaned by a United States senator," Boehner said in a statement. "Our soldiers need John Kerry's support, yet John Kerry offers nothing more than disparaging commentary."

Kerry, who is not up for re-election this year, fired back at the White House and GOP, saying he was not disparaging U.S. soldiers.

"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're crazy," he said. "No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut-and-run policy in Afghanistan and a stand-still-and-lose strategy in Iraq."

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, spoke to students at Pasadena City College in California on Monday.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the senator took the stage to roaring applause before regaling the crowd with one-liners, Bush barbs and tales of surfing at nearby Mission Beach.

He then said: "You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and 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."

A Kerry aide told CNN that the prepared statement, which had been designed to criticize President Bush, "was mangled in delivery."

Kerry was supposed to say, "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."

Before the announcement that the statement was botched, McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, joined his GOP colleagues in condemning the remark and demanding an apology.

"Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education," McCain said in a statement.

U.S. troops "deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service," he added and said the notion that only those with poor educations serve in the Iraq "is an insult to every soldier serving in combat."

"Without them, we wouldn't live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks," McCain said.

But Kerry refused to relent, calling the criticism part of the "classic GOP playbook."

"I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed-suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq."

He further expressed disgust with "Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country."

Kerry added that President Bush and Vice President Cheney "owe our troops an apology" because they "misled America into war."

Bush and Cheney "have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it," the senator said.

thedrifter

10-31-06, 03:13 PM

John Kerry: Do homework or "get stuck in Iraq"
October 31, 2006
By Greg Strange

Well, the good senator from the commonwealth of Massachusetts, John F. Kerry, is at it again. That's right. That debonair, wind-surfing uberpatriot and well-known member of a certain "band of brothers" who gave it his all in Vietnam fighting for his country (right before he proceeded to trash every American serviceman there as a war criminal) is once again caving in to his seemingly irresistible urges to say stupid and highly offensive things about Americans in uniform.

The latest came during a campaign event in California for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. While talking about education, Kerry said this:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

There you have it, boys and girls. Either you hit the books and get that homework done or you get shipped off to that illegal, unwinnable war in Iraq with the rest of those dunce cap-wearing losers.

Wow! The injudiciousness of some of Kerry's statements can be absolutely breathtaking. And just think, two short years ago it was John Kerry, "reporting for duty," saluting everybody in sight, traipsing around the country with the band of brothers and sharing all those great war stories from his proud time in Vietnam.

Of course, everybody knew then that it was all a crock cooked up for his presidential campaign to enhance his image as a plausible commander-in-chief. Subsequently, the whole thing collapsed like a bad souffle.

One might think he just doesn't care anymore about trying to project an image that he respects the military, but there have been rumors that he might take another stab at the presidency in '08. Suffice it to say, he can pretty much forget about getting the military vote. Hey, maybe he could run as the "education" president this time instead of the "war hero" president.

In the meantime, somebody needs to tell the senator that we have an all-volunteer military now and people don't just "get stuck in Iraq" because they were academic failures. It's just one more indication that when it comes to military matters, John Kerry's mind is still stuck in the Vietnam era and every engagement is a quagmire for illiterate losers.

thedrifter

10-31-06, 03:38 PM

Kerry's Gift
Posted by TOM BEVAN
October 31, 2006

If Republicans really are depressed heading into this election, there's nothing quite like a public yelling match over John Kerry's willingness to insult U.S. troops to offer a little pick me up. After McCain called on Kerry to apologize, Tony Snow at the White House followed suit, adding that Kerry's remarks were "an absolute insult" to U.S. soldiers and their families.

Instead of taking his lumps and apologizing for his ridiculous comments, Kerry went off:

"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're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. 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, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have."

Nowhere in the statement does John Kerry address the substance of what he said. I understand that Kerry has been eager to show off his tough new, "I WONT BE SWIFT-BOATED AGAIN!!!" strategy that he thinks will help convince Democrats to give him another chance at the brass ring in 2008, but to trot out this tripe to defend an insult against U.S. troops is breathtakingly arrogant - and it's an absolute gift to the GOP seven days before an election.

Kerry over the top response assures that he'll dominate the news chatter for the next 24 hours or more. And you can bet that Republicans in Congressional and Senate races around the country are prepping press releases as we speak (if they haven't already been sent out), calling on their Democratic opponents to disavow Kerry's remarks. It'll be interesting to see how that little drama plays out in the coming days.

Zulu 36

10-31-06, 03:56 PM

Yeah, I think that particular "veteran" would criticize 140,000 troops in Iraq in a heartbeat. Whadda know, he did! And all the rest of us to boot. I guess I wasted my education by being in the military.

The resident senatorial ChiCom agent strikes again. Notice too how he pretends McCain hasn't said anything, just blames the White House and the GOP in general for badmouthing him (with cause). I'm no special fan of McCain, but he does have far more veteran gravitas than Kerry does.

thedrifter

10-31-06, 03:58 PM

Kerry Belittles U.S. Troops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLuMWiQ6r2o

thedrifter

10-31-06, 04:10 PM

October 31, 2006
American Legion demands Kerry apology

By Rick Maze
Staff writer

The American Legion’s national commander said Tuesday that former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., should apologize for statements he made Monday that college students who don’t take advantage of educational opportunities may end up “stuck in Iraq.”

Paul A. Morin said he is ‘disappointed” as a Kerry constituent and “outraged” as the Legion commander at that apparent reference to U.S. troops fighting in the Iraq war.

“The senator’s false and outrageous attack was over the top and he should apologize now,” Morin said in a statement. “While The American Legion shares the senator’s appreciation for education, the troops in Iraq represent the most sophisticated, technologically superior military that the world has ever seen. I think there is a thing or two that they could teach most college professors and campus elitists about the way the world works.”

Kerry made his remarks to a college audience in California at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Kerry advised the students that if they take advantage of the many educational opportunities available today and study hard, they can get good jobs and do well in life.

Then he added: “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” according to the newspaper, which reported that the audience reacted to his comment with a combination of gasps and laughter.

Kerry, who appeared at Pasadena City College with Angelides, fellow Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other politicians, was trying to make the point that Angelides would be a better choice for governor for college students because he would repeal an increase in college tuition and expand financial aid.

A clip of Kerry’s statement is on the Internet site YouTube.

Kerry’s press office had no immediate response to questions about his statement.

Morin said this is not the first controversial statement Kerry has made about veterans. “A generation ago, Sen. Kerry slandered his comrades in Vietnam by saying that they were rapists and murderers,” Morin said. “It wasn’t true then and his warped view of today’s heroes isn’t true now.”

Kerry is a decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War and a fierce critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy who has repeatedly called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In an Oct. 26 statement, Kerry said it was “clearer than ever that we need new leadership if we are ever going to change the administration’s failed course in Iraq.”

Ellie

clemdog

10-31-06, 05:00 PM

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b213/clemdoggie/KerryQuote.jpg

Kegler300

10-31-06, 05:16 PM

You know, Kerry redefines the phrase, "stuck on stupid."

Ironrider

10-31-06, 05:19 PM

A botched joke? A botched joke. It didn't sound like a botched joke to me. Every vet I know is more than just a bit ****ed off. Even non-vets are ticked off. And according to the media, he's still refusing to apologize.

The kids I have know, going to and coming home ( and my former step-son is one) are some of the brightest young men and women I've met. To have that boob belittle them in such a manner is inexcusable.

The man owes an apology in everyone who ever wore the uniform for this nation. :mad:
Jim
Vegas

marinegreen

10-31-06, 05:24 PM

Let me sum up all this ****; "fuq all politicians!" there all phonie azzed crooks,liars. Here we're supposed to be this ulitimate nation but all we can do is belittle and make accusations of one another.Watch what happens when this chit is all over with,it'll cause more hate and discontent in politics. MAN IS DESTINED TO DETROY HIMSELF !

Ironrider

10-31-06, 05:27 PM

Like Ron White said "You can't fix stupid" :marine: :iwo:

Zulu 36

10-31-06, 05:41 PM

I just hung up the phone with my oldest daughter. She is not amused with Comrade Kerry's "botched joke" either. It should be noted that she has volunteered for a deployment to Iraq next year as an Air Force Reservist (the soonest she was eligible). I guess her three years of college (and counting) isn't worth sh*t.

thedrifter

10-31-06, 05:49 PM

John Forbes Kerry - Still An Asshat <br />
Posted By Blackfive <br />
<br />
Okay, all of you Vets and active/reserve/guard folks can stop emailing me now. I've got the emails. Basically, most of you have said "@#$%...

Ironrider

10-31-06, 05:49 PM

Go to kerry.senate.gov Send an email and demand an apology!:mad: :iwo:

kentmitchell

10-31-06, 06:03 PM

Do you supposed he's really a Republican and doing this stupid stuff to sabotage the Democrats?
Nahhhh. He's just stupid.
Don't forget, "I voted against it before I voted for it."
The Republicans ain't real smart but with guys like Kerry on the other side they look like geniuses.

yellowwing

10-31-06, 06:25 PM

Another Kerry Fumble!

He made the statement so he could follow it up to criticize the administration. But he goofed it all up. "Never miss a chance to put your foot in your mouth!"

Obama?

10thzodiac

10-31-06, 08:05 PM

American youngsters when they join the military are idealistic patriots and deserve to be treated as such. Not to be made fools of or misused in wars of folly, by either a Senator or President. I think the Senator and President both need to apologize for the wrongs they both have visited upon <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><ST1:place>Americas</ST1:place></st1:country-region> finest and show respect for the fallen and maimed by not using our military shamelessly as a political football.
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SF
10th<O:p></O:p>

Future-USMC-LT

10-31-06, 08:06 PM

Stuck in Iraq? STUCK IN IRAQ?!?!?!?!? I'd rather be around my brother Devildogs all the time instead of being in school and around a bunch of snot-nosed asshats that aren't worth protecting!!

6yrforMar

10-31-06, 08:19 PM

Azzhole Kerry is a used up Anti-War Hippie of the Vietnam era,he is acting like our military was drafted and the people in Iraq could not get their college deferrments.What a Smacked azz.Just because some of our Sen.and political candidates have a military backround does not mean they are going to be pro America or pro military.Kerry is in the same league as Jane Fonda,Murtha and all of the rest of anti-American far left.

yellowwing

10-31-06, 08:30 PM

http://www.ywg-web.com/images/cheney.jpg
Now who wants to go hunting? :banana:

jinelson

10-31-06, 08:49 PM

This Is An October Surprise From Hanoi John Hanoi Kerry, but Im sure tomorrow we will read or hear him say I didnt say that or I meant something else.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/20061027213209990005.jpg

Thanks John you traitor scum we have not forgotten you!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/134296.jpg

marinegreen

10-31-06, 08:52 PM

I'll go hunting with you MS.Vice President'e, but I want you in front of me and you carrying a toy gun you non hunten lying crook.Hey Ms. Vice President'e, was some of that $ 90 million you made last tax yr profits from haliburton,you know the one that got caught jacking up prices for services rendered in Iraq, but you still alloowed to stay in Iraq only to be caught stealing again.Boy you good ole washington boys sure stick together dont you, eeerrrr ooopppssss should I say; you good ole oil boys ?? I'd like to see how bush handles things without you telling him what to do. Thats right people,I hate em both so "READ EM AND WEAP!"

greensideout

10-31-06, 11:09 PM

The VP took advantage of five deferments and never entered the military as I understand it. With this being the case, isn't it outstanding that his son chose to join the Marine Corps!

Has anyone heard an update on his enlistment? He should be in boot by now and I am wondering how he will be handled, what MOS, what duty station, OCS?, etc.

Mom and dad took him on a retreat to Washington state in a remote area that I have visited. It's nice there! I wonder if they were trying to get into the mind of a young man that would join the Marines when his daddy is the VP? Well, his daddy has no idea of military service let alone understanding the call to become a United States Marine! I hope that he earns the title and gives mom and dad a different look at those that serve our country. No, he won't be in a chair in DC like daddy but instead he will be on the front line defending the furture of America. Something that daddy was never willing to do.

I wish this young man well and hope to call him a brother, a Marine.

greensideout

10-31-06, 11:18 PM

As for Kerry, WHAT A JERK!!!

marinegreen

11-01-06, 01:10 AM

Zulu 36

11-01-06, 06:15 AM

Wow I didnt know cheney had a son. I knew he had a bull dyke daughter and that there proud of her for wearing snap on tools. Maybe she's the way she is is because her fearless dad was a coward to join the military and she thought somebody needs to be the man of the house. The phrase CUT AND RUN was BUSH and Cheneys motto; it seemed to work keeping them outta Nam.
Perhaps you were unaware of it, but VP Cheney was a Naval aviator (active duty) in his younger days. This is a common mistake for those who base their information on DNC press releases.

drumcorpssnare

11-01-06, 06:25 AM

Sen. Kerry- Why the long face? Oh, you had another oral bowel movement. Well that's nothing new. And sure, you tried to wiggle out of this one with a "that's not what I meant." But you don't even have enough spine to apologize to the troops after your lame-ass excuse.

And whattya know...When I finished 'droppin a deuce' in the toilet this morning, before I flushed...I looked and said, "Is that you, Senator Kerry?"
Sure enough...it was!!!:banana:

SEMPER FI
drumcorpssnare

thedrifter

11-01-06, 07:26 AM

John Kerry thinks
The Washington Times
November 1, 2006

When you get right down to it, the thoughtless foot-in-mouth disease of Sen. John Kerry is a strain unique to him. The senator gives elitism a bad name.

"Education," Mr. Kerry told a rally this week for Phil Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor of California, "if you make the most of it, if you study hard and 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."

Stuck in Iraq -- that's what Sen. Kerry thinks happens to people who don't study hard. You end up in the uniform, serving your country and getting shot at. Nice going, Senator Winter Soldier.

In a press conference to explain himself yesterday, Mr. Kerry rejected calls by the White House and Sen. John McCain to apologize to the American soldiers in Iraq. Instead, he repeated his litany of criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war, accusing Republicans of a political trick to exploit his remarks. He called his remarks "a botched joke." Some joke. Some botch.

We have news for Mr. Kerry, beyond conveying our assessment that this arrogant, incredibly elitist and defeatist and altogether reprehensible statement reminds us why he isn't president and never will be: Patriotism and selflessness are why young Americans readily put themselves in harm's way for their country's sake. This C student is just plain wrong on the facts.

U.S. recruits are better educated than the average American of equivalent age. In fact, 98 percent of U.S. military recruits have a high-school education or G.E.D. Only 75 percent of equivalent-age American youths do. For senators who can't do the math, that's 23 percentage points past just plain wrong. The Heritage Foundation's recent study, "Who are the Recruits?" lays out these numbers and more. Who would compare what 19- and 20-year-olds do in combat to what the typical college sophomore is doing. (Sometimes best not to know.)

We understand that Mr. Kerry's primary aim on Monday was to bomb the White House to get at the commander in chief. The troops were an afterthought. Which, come to think of it, is the point -- just as it was in the 1970s, when Mr. Kerry made a career of smearing American troops as killers on his return from Vietnam.

It's one thing, bad enough, to be an elitist who knows the facts. It's another to be an elitist who doesn't know them. So thank you, Mr. Kerry, for speaking so candidly. People can see clearly who you are.

ese4mc

11-01-06, 07:29 AM

Imagine this veteran" Hero " talking about 140,000 heros in Iraq today,but,a 1/2 million,murderers,thieves,rapists the last time he opened his mouth---don*t you just love these M******* politicians :thumbdown

jryanjack

11-01-06, 07:35 AM

Perhaps you were unaware of it, but VP Cheney was a Naval aviator (active duty) in his younger days. This is a common mistake for those who base their information on DNC press releases.

Sorry Zulu - but the VP never served in the military. Check out his White House bio for clarification.

thedrifter

11-01-06, 07:53 AM

No laughs for kin of Bay State military
By Jessica Fargen
Boston Herald Health & Medical Reporter

Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - Updated: 04:39 AM EST

Sen. John F. Kerry’s “botched joke” about Iraq stung Bay State military families who say their sons and brothers chose to fight for what they believed was right - not because they flunked out of school.

“It was never that he didn’t have other options. He had plenty of options,” said Michelle Arredondo of Boston about her 20-year-old brother Carlos Arredondo who is deploying to Iraq, soon after he enlisted with the Marines right out of high school.

“My parents work hard to pay for our school. It wasn’t like, if he didn’t do that he wouldn’t be able to do anything else,” she said. “He has very strong beliefs in our freedom and fighting for our freedom.”

Kerry says he was trying to be funny - and was aiming at President Bush, not U.S. troops - when he warned California students to do their homework or “you get stuck in Iraq.”

But that explanation didn’t sit well with the family of slain National Guardsman Sgt. Michael Kelley, 26, who died in Afghanistan June 8, 2005.

“I wouldn’t have taken it as a joke,” said Kelley’s older sister, Karianne Golemme of Rockland, who was offended by Kerry’s comments. “Everyone in Michael’s unit, they all had their reason for going over there.”

Added her father, Joe Kelley: “Our family certainly paid the price for freedom and we pay it everyday as a nation,” he said.

Some military families, however, gave the junior senator the benefit of the doubt.

Stephany Kern, whose son, Haverhill native Marine Lance Cpl. Nickolas Schiavoni, 26, was killed in Iraq nearly a year ago, said Kerry was referring to Bush’s own mediocre college record and implying that his poor leadership landed the country in Iraq.

“Under no circumstance is John Kerry saying anything derogatory about the men and women who are in service,” said Kern, whose son left behind a widow and two young children.

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, has refused GOP calls to apologize, instead blaming right-wing critics for making too large an issue out of his remark.

- jfargen@bostonherald.com

Ellie

thedrifter

11-01-06, 08:19 AM

Kerry Throws a Party
By Jay D. Homnick
Published 11/1/2006 12:08:03 AM

My old friend Isaiah Treff once told me: "Jay, if you weren't such a wise guy you would be a wise man." That line applies today to the great Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John F. Kerry, a man who nearly graduated from electoral college. Someone offered JFK a franc for his thoughts the other night, eliciting this bon mot: Get a good education so you don't get stuck in Iraq. Now Kerry's knowledge of French will sure come in handy; words like gaffe and faux pas and contretemps will figure prominently in conversations conducted behind his back. It's a regular cause celebre, you should excuse the expression.

JFK was given the chance to tow his marooned PT Cruiser off the shoals. Citizens being charitable and journalists being slavish, it would have been the work of an instant to apologize. Instead he showed a profile in courage. Courage to stand up to those Republican hacks; like Custer he would not sit still for their bull. Courage to stand up to that "stuffed suit," Tony Snow, in the starkest case of pot-kettle black calling since Paris Hilton called Lindsay Lohan a ditz. Courage to stand up to "doughy" Rush Limbaugh, who apparently managed to rattle Kerry with half his rabbit-foot tied behind is back.

So poor Kerry, Yale diploma and all, got stuck up on Iraq himself. As his advisers will tell him in French: "Oui bleu ette." Or as his wife will relegate him: "Oubliette." Not to mention the 57 varieties of spicy remarks she will tender his way. If the Democrats were really headed for Congressional victory a day ago, their chances have now sailed off on the swift boat to China.

TRUTH TO TELL, I find all this saddening. It is my fond, perhaps unrealistic, wish to live in a country with two sets of viable political ideas competing first intellectually, then electorally. This was said, in various overlong essays of turgid prose foisted upon us back in college days, to be the beauty of the two-party system. We took this to heart in our youth, if only in our effort to crash two parties a night. There were real debates in those days and the Democrats were often right on such things as the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.

Now, sadly, my job has become for the most part a no-brainer. While my Democrat friends tend to be well-meaning, nice people, they are represented in the political arena by a band of rapacious rapscallions. Their intellectual wing has also shut down, paralyzed by a weird cluster of alliances and prejudices. It is not merely true the Republicans are alone in promoting vibrant ideas at this time; it is so scarily true that it makes the Republicans wrangle among themselves just so they can have some sense of philosophical ferment.

Think about it. Left-wingers embraced a sort of free-love ideal in the '60s, originally out of a sort of science-trumps-morality logic, but now they have followed it to abortion as an inexorable destination -- to the point where the logic and science of the child's viability must be ignored. They accepted a model which identified religious Jews and Christians as the victims of a huge confidence game, rendering all the enthusiasms of such people suspect. Then along comes an attack from a quasi-theological force identifying the Judeo-Christian world as its target and leftists cannot work up the verve to join the fight for survival. The left agreed, based initially in philosophy, that all verity is nullity, and now cannot summon the moxie to do battle for the truth.

At this point I will let you in on a little secret, a powerful insight into the human personality. The fact is that a big part of the reluctance by Republicans earlier in this political season to vote for their own cause is wishful thinking that somehow a cleaner ideology will emerge from the destruction. Just as the Madeleine Albrights of the world are upset with America being the only superpower, some purist conservatives are upset with the Republicans being the only super-party. They fear the wrath of the Founding Fathers, who sought to foster an atmosphere of rational ratiocination.

Instead we get this. The Democrat Party are snobs, solons in salons, calling the Republicans slobs. Their books have no ideas, just analysis of how Karl Rove gulls naive rubes in revival tents into voting against their true interests. Books with titles like "The Haecceity of the Hayseed"; or, "What Makes Hicks Tick." One party has the condescension while the other is in the ascension. One party does the patronizing while the other has the patrons. It's not my fault if my side wins by default. It's my party that has the ideas and I'll cry if I want to.

Ellie

jenesbitt

11-01-06, 08:22 AM

It's been over 35 years since I was on riot detail while stationed at Marine Barracks 8th & I. Thirty five years since I looked across my M-14 with fixed bayonet at John Kerry. He called for all Marines on that riot line to drop our weapons and become traitors to his and "Hanoi" Jane Fondas cause. John Kerry, elected Senator....... Thirty five years since he chunked somebodies medals over the White House fence.

Makes me heart sickened.

thedrifter

11-01-06, 08:26 AM

The Mature Alternative to Howard Dean

John Kerry issued the following statement today in defense of the above-noted remark. We quote it in full and verbatim:

Statement of John Kerry Responding to Republican Distortions, Pathetic Tony Snow Diversions and Distractions

Washington--Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry's comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

"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're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. 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, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq."

Um, well . . . (ahem!) that certainly puts the whole thing in a different light.

Ellie

jenesbitt

11-01-06, 08:33 AM

John Kerry.....went to war with a super 8 movie camera so as to capture his heroism. (Self Promotion at what cost? Inattention to duty!

OLE SARG

11-01-06, 08:40 AM

ms kerry is stuck in the 60's and 70's - this is the same ole tired BS he was pitching back then.
TOO DAMN BAD THIS SILLY SOB COULDN'T HAVE BOUGHT A BULLET IN VIETNAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I've stated before, ms kerry is a disgrace to the United States, he is traitor, and a liar.
I don't see how this lurch looking MF can walk with both his ****ing feet in his mouth!!!!
SEMPER FI,

thedrifter

11-01-06, 08:48 AM

November 01, 2006, 0:00 a.m.
Kerry, Kerry Quite Contrary
Frozen flash from the past.

By Jonah Goldberg

Well, Sen. John Kerry certainly did his best to offer an October surprise for Republicans at the last minute.

On Monday, Kerry was in California, stumping for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. At an event at Pasadena City College intended to highlight Democratic education policies, Kerry told students, “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.” But, he added, “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

The Internet lit up like a pinball machine. Sen. John McCain called on Kerry to apologize. Shortly thereafter the grand whirligig of the GOP message machine started churning, with denunciatory press releases from the usual suspects. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow asked the press to ask Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb of Virginia — a veteran and the father of a soldier in Iraq — if he agreed with Kerry’s comments.

In response, Kerry issued a splenetic statement: “I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed-suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium. ... It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have. ... Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men.”

This raises an interesting question: Can a typed diatribe still be spittle-flecked?

Later, Kerry did find a podium in Seattle and more or less read the same statement for the cameras.

Presumably, Kerry doesn’t believe that McCain is either a stuffed-suit Republican hack or a cowardly service-slacking liar. Nor should it matter. Either what Kerry said was wrong or it wasn’t. Neither his service nor his critics’ lack thereof changes the meaning of what Kerry said.

But what did he say? Kerry insists he was making a joke about President Bush, not a joke about students who aren’t smart enough to do better than the military. While there’s virtually nothing in the text or video of his remarks to lend support for this, save for a wan smile he offered to the mute audience, it’s possible that was his intent. After all, Kerry is an awful politician, a human toothache with the charisma of a 19th-century Oxford Latin tutor. One can’t rule out the possibility that he simply
botched a joke.

If it was a joke, it was a pretty bad one, even for him. First, Bush got better grades than Kerry at Yale. More relevant, if launching the Iraq war is a sign of stupidity and a failure to do one’s homework, Kerry should avoid calling attention to the fact that he voted to approve it and defended that vote throughout his 2004 presidential campaign.

But whether or not it was a joke, it certainly sounded like Kerry was talking about the troops, because that’s the way Kerry talks about everything. Kerry’s a bit like one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials, only he’s a throwback to a slightly more recent era: Vietnam.

All of his ideas were formed from his experience as an anti-Vietnam crusader. He may have run as a born-again war hero in 2004, but his political career was founded on his activism against a war he repeatedly labeled a crime.

That’s why few gave Kerry the benefit of the doubt. The idea that the military is the last refuge for the lumpen-proletariat is a Vietnam-era chestnut that continues to pop up in liberal talking points. It wasn’t very accurate during Vietnam, and it’s even less so now. A timely study of the demographics of enlistees in our all-volunteer military found that the share of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods has declined steadily since 1999 and throughout the war. Moreover, “U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers.”

Kerry thinks it’s unfair for Republicans to seize on his comments, and to an extent he’s right. He obviously didn’t intend to insult America’s servicemen and women. But Kerry fails to understand that he — like so many fossils of his generation in the Democratic party — sounds like he’s frozen in the past. The Democratic position on Iraq is that it’s Vietnam all over again, and the only time Kerry ever seems sure of himself is when he’s reprising his anti-Vietnam schtick.

Sure, Republicans are seizing on his comments with the same opportunistic zeal Democrats displayed when they recently tried to paint the GOP as soft on sexual predation on congressional pages. But Kerry — like much of his party — seems determined to lend plausibility to such criticisms.

Ellie

Osotogary

11-01-06, 08:53 AM

If John Kerry did apologize....would anyone believe him? I think not. I think that if he did apologize publicly, he would do it not so much because he meant it but because now it would be on public record that he did so.

Mike McIntyre

11-01-06, 08:59 AM

Don’t kid yourselves. John Kerry’s attitude is more pervasive than ya’ll think. My son went to a High School where the principal will only let recruiters in the building in uniform (except ROTC) once a month.
<O:p></O:p>
Her reason and I quote, “All of our graduates are preparing for college!” <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
She loathed ROTC even though the Drill Team had won State and placed second at Regionals. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
ROTC was, “for the students who wanted out of PE and didn’t play sports (Football)”<O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
These are the feelings of our Leaders & Educators!!!!!!!!

thedrifter

11-01-06, 09:46 AM

'Soulless' Kerry Lacks Honor, Patriotism

by John O'Neill
Posted Nov 01, 2006

As a member of what John Kerry called in 1971 an Army like that of “Genghis Khan,” I wasn’t surprised by his comments that our troops in Iraq were those “stuck there” because of bad educational performance.

It is a fitting sequel to his claims, as recently as last spring, that our soldiers “were terrorizing women and children” in the dead of night, and as long ago as his many statements in the early 1970s that we were murderers and rapists.

How can one expect any understanding of duty, honor or country out of a person so soulless as to repeatedly switch sides on his comrades—out of a person who seeks to win an election while losing a war by falsely claiming our soldiers are academic failures robotically committing war crimes?

Kerry—refusing today to apologize, as in 1971 and 2004—has stated this was just a misfired joke. But it was not a joke to the Pennsylvania mother with two sons in the Marines in Iraq (who both volunteered with MBAs and far higher grades than C-student Kerry) who just called me crying. Nor was it a joke to millions of us who listened to our maimed and dead friends described by Kerry in 1971 as an army of rapists and murderers.

To a self-consumed creature like John Kerry, who has providentially married two of the wealthiest women in the world, even love is too hard an emotion to understand—much less loyalty, honor, patriotism and the other virtues that cause brave souls to dare all and to risk all, including their lives, for their friends and their nation.

More tragic for our nation than Kerry’s slurs are the failure of the Democratic Party to condemn his words. This was once the party of Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt. It is now the party of unapologetic self-consumed hedonism.

Winston Churchill spoke long ago in the 1930s of the time of “locusts” who consumed honor and patriotism, leaving England undefended. John Kerry is truly one of those locusts in a party of locusts consuming the honor and sacrifice of better men to seek political victory while leaving our nation grievously exposed.

Ellie

thedrifter

11-01-06, 09:52 AM

The Democrats' Military Disdain
By Michelle Malkin
November 1, 2006

The Democrats' failed 2004 presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, may have just sabotaged his party's highest hopes for the 2006 midterm elections. Karl Rove himself couldn't have engineered a better campaign reminder of the Democrats' utter lack of credibility when it comes to supporting, respecting and leading America's military.

Here is what Sen. Kerry told an audience of young people at a campaign event on the Pasadena City College campus on Monday held for losing California Democrat gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

And this man aspired to be our nation's 21st-century commander in chief with that Neanderthal 1960s attitude? Both a local NBC news affiliate reporter and a Pasadena Star-News reporter mentioned Kerry's statement without fully realizing the condescending slam against our, ahem, all-volunteer armed forces embedded in the remarks. The Star-News did observe that the derisive comment was met with "a mixture of laughter and gasps." But it wasn't until after KFI-AM Los Angeles radio show host John Ziegler posted the audio on the Internet (web site) and a YouTube user posted video of the event (web site) that a firestorm broke out on the airwaves and across the right side of the blogosphere.

America has the best-trained, most professional, most well-educated military in the world. But the moonbats want only to hear the myths of the soldier-as-victim or the soldier-as-brutalizer or soldier-as-indentured servant. Never mind that for every two volunteer recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods, as The Heritage Foundation recently reported. Never mind that 99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education. Never mind that 49.2 percent of officers have advanced or professional degrees; 39.4 percent have master's degrees; 8.5 percent have professional degrees; and 1.3 percent have doctorate degrees.

Kerry's response to the backlash from military families around the globe? An adviser admitted to the National Journal that his boss's botched warning to students was "mangled." But a Kerry press release instead attacked Rush Limbaugh, White House spokesman Tony Snow and "assorted right-wing nut-jobs" (present!) for the words that came out of his mouth and his mouth alone. The Associated Press water-carrier for Kerry and the Dems, left-wing reporter Jennifer Loven, dutifully recycled the Democrat line that Kerry was really targeting President Bush, not the lazy, uneducated troops "stuck in Iraq."

Nonsense. The intent was clear enough for at least some in the audience to "gasp," as the local reporter on the scene described.

This is no isolated case of Democrat incompetence and insensitivity toward the military. Kerry's party is the party of Dick Durbin, who likened American interrogators and Gitmo military staff to Nazis, Soviet gulag operators and genocidal maniac Pol Pot.

Kerry's party is the party of Patty Murray, who praised Osama bin Laden's charity work with nary a nod to our men and women in uniform who have sailed and flown to the most far-flung regions of the world on reconstruction and humanitarian missions. Kerry's party is the party that approved of him tarring American troops as terrorizers in Iraq last year.

And Kerry's party is the party whose national party website couldn't even find an American soldier to illustrate a page dedicated to "Veterans and Military Families" (michellemalkin.com/archives/006073.htm). Until a military reader of my blog called attention to it, the DNC site erroneously featured a photo of a Canadian soldier named "Abdul" in its attempt to show support for American troops.

Can you trust a party with such entrenched disdain and contempt for the military to use that power well and wisely at a time of war? America made a choice in 2004. Two years later, the Democrats have said and done nothing to earn the nation's endorsement now.

Ellie

thedrifter

11-01-06, 10:27 AM

SIGN A PETITION

John Kerry Should Apologize

John Kerry recently told students that "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."

I believe that those who serve in our military represent the very best of America, and they deserve to be honored, not insulted by the likes of John Kerry.

John Kerry Should Apologize.

www.gop.com/GetActive/Petition.aspx

Ellie

fontman

11-01-06, 10:50 AM

One thing that needs to happen with the fallout of Senator Kerry's remarks against our military personnel is for the senate leadership to strip him of his position on the Armed Forces Committee. It is unconscionable that someone who made these remarks is allowed to be anywhere near military decision-making and we need to send Senator Frist and all our senators a message to remove him from this committee ASAP.

;)

6yrforMar

11-01-06, 11:11 AM

John Kerry who strived to emulate John Kennedy`s WW2 service is a disgrace to the uniform he once wore,in fact he is a disgrace to be an American.People are fighting and dying so he can stand up on his soap box and spew hate and contempt for our military.He is lucky he is not a citizen of Iraq where he can be abducted,tortured {real torture},and your body dumped on the street.

Mike McIntyre

11-01-06, 11:12 AM

Can you trust a party with such entrenched disdain and contempt for the military to use that power well and wisely at a time of war? America made a choice in 2004. Two years later, the Democrats have said and done nothing to earn the nation's endorsement now.

Ellie[/quote]

Very, very, true!!!!!!

Zulu 36

11-01-06, 11:19 AM

Sorry, you're right. I was thinking of Rumsfeld.

jinelson

11-01-06, 11:29 AM

By Fontman - One thing that needs to happen with the fallout of Senator Kerry's remarks against our military personnel is for the senate leadership to strip him of his position on the Armed Forces Committee. It is unconscionable that someone who made these remarks is allowed to be anywhere near military decision-making and we need to send Senator Frist and all our senators a message to remove him from this committee ASAP.

Fontman is right Kerry needs to be stripped of his committee membership on the Armed Forces Committee!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/why4.jpg

GrecianHoney

11-01-06, 12:56 PM

Why is John Kerry breathing my damn air ! ?

rktect3j

11-01-06, 01:45 PM

[QUOTE=jinelson][CENTER]

Fontman is right Kerry needs to be stripped of his committee membership on the Armed Forces Committee!

Show me the petition and I will sign it.

Kerry opened up somebodys door for the 2008 election with this one.

Cpl BAJA

11-01-06, 02:00 PM

I don't know if anyone has see this yet, but it is funny.
http://www.drudgereport.com/

thedrifter

11-01-06, 02:34 PM

I don't know if anyone has see this yet, but it is funny.
http://www.drudgereport.com/

:D

November 01, 2006
Blistering of Kerry for ‘stuck in Iraq’ remark continues

By Rick Maze
Staff writer

The head of the nation’s largest association of combat veterans says he hopes politicians learned a lesson from Sen. John Kerry’s perceived insult this week toward troops in Iraq.

“You don’t use troops as the butt of your jokes,” said Gary Kurpius, commander in chief of Veterans of Foreign Wars. “The senator was attempting levity and it backfired, big time.”

Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran for president in 2004, was speaking Monday at a campaign event in California when he seemed to say that people who don’t get a quality education end up stuck in Iraq.

His exact words were: “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.”

On Tuesday, Kerry said he was not trying to offend U.S. troops, but rather was trying to make a joke about President Bush’s credentials to oversee the war in Iraq. It was, he said, “a botched joke about the president and the president’s people, not about the troops.”

Kerry aides said that the prepared speech talked about how a student who didn’t do well in school could end up setting the kind of top-level government policy that has gotten the U.S. “stuck in Iraq,” intended as a reference to President Bush.

Republicans, however, have not been willing to let him off the hook. “Sen. Kerry’s insinuation that only poor students are fighting the war in Iraq is a grave insult to the fine men and women who are protecting our freedom there,” said Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo. “I know many of the fine Guard and active-duty troops from Missouri, including my son, who are bright, dedicated and patriotic Americans.”

Bond called Kerry’s comments a “slur.”

Kurpius was more charitable. “Senator Kerry is a decorated Vietnam veteran and a fellow VFW member who differs with the president on the prosecution of the war,” Kurpius said.

But, Kurpius added, that does not give Kerry “carte blanche to use education as a weapon and our servicemen and women as his targets.”

“There is already a serious disconnect between the war’s impact on the general population and the 2.2 million who proudly serve in uniform,” said Kurpius, who also is a Vietnam veteran. “Let’s not use politics to widen that gap.”

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, wrote Kerry asking for a “clear and simple apology” for veterans. In a letter co-written with Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., Buyer called Kerry’s comments “disrespectful and condescending.”

“I don’t know how many of our soldiers you have met, but … they are the best and brightest that our nation has to offer and … they do not believe they are ‘stuck in Iraq,’ ” the letter says.

“It is bad enough that you disparage their mission every chance you get, that you ignore any signs of progress or hope, that like the mainstream media you focus only on the bad news and ignore the good news that American troops and their Iraqi allies are bringing to Iraqi families every day, and that you offer no alternatives and no plan for victory in Iraq or on in the larger War on Terror,” the letter states. “Sadly, this seems to have become a pattern: blame America first and disparage the men and women who serve so bravely in our defense.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the House Armed Services Committee chairman and also a Vietnam veteran, also said Kerry should apologize.

“My own son quit his high-tech job following the 9/11 attacks, joined the Marines and volunteered for two tours in western Iraq,” said Hunter, who announced Monday that he was exploring a run for president in 2008.

As proof that Kerry was wrong in inferring that only the uneducated end up in Iraq, Hunter provided some statistics.

“Of the men and women who have served and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, 97.2 percent have held a high school diploma or more,” Hunter said. “In fact, more than 213,000 of the 1.4 million who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan hold bachelor’s, master’s or Ph.D. degrees.”

Additionally, about two-thirds of recruits come from the top-half of American youths in terms of math and verbal aptitude, he said.

Hunter also noted that Guard and reserve members are drawn from all walks of life. “Many of the members of the National Guard and Reserves who have deployed recently are lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, principals, journalists — to name just a few professions-in their civilian lives,” he said.

Ellie

jinelson

11-01-06, 03:22 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/help20photo200611011055op4.jpg

The reaction of US forces in Iraq is already being heard.

SGT Russow

11-01-06, 03:34 PM

What the hell? If misses john kerry didn't mean to say it, then why the hell won't he just appologize to the troops and veterans? I did not go to Iraq to be called stupid. I did not have the money or the means to go to college. I'm glad that I didn't vote for him. Did anybody write this nimrod and demand an appology?

thedrifter

11-01-06, 03:50 PM

An Open Letter To Senator Kerry

By Jack
from the News department, Section News
Posted on Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 10:39:10 AM EST

While campaigning in California on Monday, Senator Kerry told a college crowd: "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." The Senator has since said his remarks were a "botched joke."
Dear Senator Kerry,

I believe you.

I've watched video of your speech, heard you preface the "stuck in Iraq" comment with a rather lame one-liner about President Bush living in a "state of denial," watched you (somewhat haltingly) read the first part of your comment off an index card, before looking up at the camera and delivering what, no doubt, was supposed to be the punchline.

Instead you stepped on your dick.

Your staff is saying you meant to say, "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."

So, yeah...I believe it was a "botched joke." And not a very good one, at that.

I mean, think about it.

I know President Bush has long been mocked by the Left as not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he beat you, didn't he?

So, you know, it begs the question: If you're so smart and he's so dumb, why ain't you President?

But I digress.

Like I said, I believe you. It was meant to be yet another tongue-in-cheek insult directed at our nation's president by a man that some might call a "sore loser."

Well, sir, whatever you intended to say, your remarks are being taken as a swipe at the intellect of our fighting men and women in Iraq.

You really didn't mean to go there, now did you?

Of course you didn't.

While I know that you have no great regard for the men and women of our military, even you know better than to openly imply that they are a bunch of dummies who couldn't hack it in the real world or didn't have the cash to hide out in college, so were left with no choice but to become cannon fodder for Bushco and his Oil War.

No, that's the kind of thing that gets said behind closed doors. Among the 'intellectual elite,' who have long held the military in barely disguised contempt.

Not out on the campaign trail, where such gaffes have a tendency to bite one on the ass.

But you know, there's a grain of truth in that. Maybe even more than a grain.

Lots of men and women have joined the armed forces, seeing in military service not only a chance to defend their nation, but an opportunity to better themselves.

Military service opens doors. It can change lives.

It worked for me.

I was a highschool dropout when I enlisted in 1986, Senator. I was one of those who didn't make the most of education. I didn't study hard, or do my homework, or make an effort to be smart. My running buddies were dopers and hoodlums. Twenty years later, I'm a successful, respected law enforcement officer and Army Reservist and they are prison inmates.

Those that aren't dead.

So yeah, the military has long been a place for those with limited opportunities. Contrary to what you and those like you might think, though, it isn't a dumping ground for losers.

It's an environment where discipline, dedication, and determination matter more than skin color or background or education.

A place where honor means more than money.

Where even the lowliest can achieve great heights.

Countless Americans have served their country honorably, in war and peace. Many have sought military service as a way to get a hand up in life. Many have gone on to achieve great things that would have been impossible with the opportunities offered by military service.

They are proud of that, and of our nation's armed forces. Justifiably so. They naturally bristle at any insult, intended or not, directed towards it, and most especially to the brave men and woman who are in harm's way even now.

You trumpet that fact that you are a veteran, sir. You say it loud and often. You say is as if it should mean something.

Does it mean something, Senator?

You stepped on your dick. Apologize and be done with it.

You can say, "In my attempt to insult the intelligence of the president, my remarks were misinterpreted, and I'm sorry if anyone was offended by that."

We'll know it's not a real apology, but we'll take it.

We have guys downrange right now, Senator.

They are "stuck in Iraq." You owe them an apology.

Man up, sir.

Sincerely,

Jack

Ellie

thedrifter

11-01-06, 03:52 PM

The Pix....above....

it appears that the friendly folks of the Minnesota National Guard are
the originators of the now famous Irak photo. They are currently in Iraq.

http://www.minnesotanationalguard.org/units/unit_template.php?unit=134bc

jinelson

11-01-06, 03:59 PM

By Sgt Russow - Did anybody write this nimrod and demand an appology?

Oct 31 8:49 AM US/Eastern
To: National Desk

Contact: Ramona Joyce, 202-263-2982 or 202-445-1161 (cell), Joe March, 317-630-1253 or 317-748-1926 (cell), both of the American Legion

INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 31 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National Commander of The American Legion called on Sen. John Kerry to apologize for suggesting that American troops in Iraq are uneducated.

"As a constituent of Senator Kerry's I am disappointed. As leader of The American Legion, I am outraged," said National Commander Paul A. Morin. "A generation ago, Sen. Kerry slandered his comrades in Vietnam by saying that they were rapists and murderers. It wasn't true then and his warped view of today's heroes isn't true now."

While addressing a group of college students at a campaign rally in Pasadena, CA., Monday, Kerry suggested that they receive an education or "if you don't, you'll get stuck in Iraq."

"While The American Legion shares the senator's appreciation for education, the troops in Iraq represent the most sophisticated, technologically superior military that the world has ever seen," Morin said. "I think there is a thing or two that they could teach most college professors and campus elitists about the way the world works.

"And while we are on the topic of education, why doesn't the senator and his comrades in Congress improve the GI Bill so all of today's military members - reserves and guard included - can achieve the educational aspirations that the senator so highly values?" Morin said. "The senator's false and outrageous attack was over-the-top and he should apologize now."

================================================== =

AMVETS Calls on Senator to Apologize to Troops
Oct 31 10:54 AM US/Eastern

To: City Desk,

Contact: Joseph Chenelly of AMVETS, 301-683-4035, or jchenelly@amvets.org

LANHAM, Md., Oct. 31 /U.S. Newswire/ -- AMVETS' National Commander expressed disbelief and disappointment in the comments by Senator John Kerry Monday.

“For the Senator to suggest that today’s United States military is made up of uneducated men and women who didn’t ‘study hard’ or ‘make an effort to be smart’ is ridiculous and appalling,” AMVETS National Commander Thomas C. McGriff said Tuesday. “The men and women in uniform today make up the most advanced, highly-educated force ever seen. To suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coast Guardsman who has spent countless hours working to better him or herself. This is also an insult to every person and organization who has worked tirelessly to provide our troops and their families with education benefits.

“Senator Kerry should retract his remarks and apologize immediately,” McGriff said after listening to comments made by Senator Kerry at a political rally in Pasadena, Calif., Monday. “It is especially outrageous coming from a member of the U.S. Senate.”

---------------------------------------------------

FLASH: McCain Calls On Kerry To Apologize
Tue Oct 31 2006 11:43:14 ET

Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn't live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.

END

--------------------------------------------------

White House Spokesman Slams Kerry Remark
Oct 31 12:59 PM US/Eastern

By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

The White House accused Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday of troop-bashing, seizing on a comment the Democrat made to California students that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."

"Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who've given their lives in this," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "This is an absolute insult."

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran and Bush's rival in 2004, fired back, saying the president and his administration are the ones who owe U.S. troops an apology because they "misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it."

"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."

Snow was asked about the comment which Kerry made during a campaign rally Monday for California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. The White House spokesman was clearly ready, consulting his notes to read a fuller account of Kerry's statement and unleashing a sharp attack.

The Massachusetts senator, who is considering another presidential run in 2008, had opened his speech at Pasadena City College with several one-liners, joking at one point that Bush had lived in Texas but now "lives in a state of denial."

Then he 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."

Snow said the quote "fits a pattern" of negative remarks from Kerry about U.S. soldiers and suggested that whether Democratic candidates _ particularly those running on their military service backgrounds _ agree with their 2004 standard-bearer should be a campaign litmus test.

Unsubstantiated allegations about Kerry's Vietnam War heroism from a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth figured prominently in the 2004 Kerry-Bush race. Even Kerry has blamed his slow and uncertain response to the group's claims for helping doom his White House chances.

Snow said a lot of Americans have joined the military since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"As for the notion that you can say this sort of thing about the troops and say you support them, it's interesting," the press secretary said.

A potential rival to Kerry in 2008 _ Republican Sen. John McCain _ said in a statement that Kerry "owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education."

Like Kerry, McCain is a decorated Vietnam veteran.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also called on Kerry to apologize, labeling his comments "disrespectful and insulting to the men and women serving in our military."

___

--------------------------------------------------

Kerry's Responce!

White House, Kerry Exchange Accusations
Email this Story

Oct 31, 4:52 PM (ET)

By JENNIFER LOVEN

(AP) Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, speaks in support of California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House and Sen. John Kerry traded their harshest accusations since the 2004 presidential race on Tuesday, with President Bush accusing the Democrat of troop-bashing and Kerry calling the president's men hacks who are "willing to lie."

The war of words, tough even for this hard-fought campaign season, came after Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."

The two parties are searching for any edge amid indications Democrats could take back the House and possibly win control of the Senate in next week's midterm elections. Though neither Bush nor Kerry is on any ballot, the bitterness with which they fought each other as 2004 rivals spilled over as both campaign hard for their parties in a race shaped in large measure by public doubts about the Iraq war.

White House press secretary Tony Snow was asked about Kerry's comment at his regular briefing with reporters, and had clearly come prepared with a lengthy attack. He said the quote "fits a pattern" of negative remarks about U.S. soldiers from the decorated Vietnam veteran and suggested that whether Democratic candidates - particularly those running on their military service backgrounds - agree with their 2004 standard-bearer should be a campaign litmus test.

The White House also released in advance remarks Bush was to deliver later in the day while campaigning in Georgia, in which the president called Kerry's statement "insulting and shameful." Bush, like his spokesman earlier, said soldiers deserve an apology from Kerry.

"Our troops did not enlist because they did not study hard in school or do their homework," Bush said in his prepared remarks for a former GOP congressman, Mac Collins, who is trying to oust Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall. "The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots."

Kerry, who is considering another run for the White House in 2008, angrily fired back.

His statement called Republicans "assorted right-wing nut jobs."

And 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."

It came during a campaign rally for California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. Kerry opened his speech at Pasadena City College with several one-liners, saying at one point that Bush had lived in Texas but now "lives in a state of denial."

He then 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."

That, Kerry said, was meant as a reference to Bush, not troops. Kerry said it is the president who owes U.S. soldiers an apology - for "a Katrina foreign policy" that misled the country into war in Iraq, failed to adequately study and plan for the aftermath, has not properly equipped troops and has expanded the terrorist threat.

The Massachusetts Democrat called the White House attack "a classic GOP textbook Republican campaign tactic" that reveals Republicans'"willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics."

"I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes," he said. "It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did."

Unsubstantiated allegations about Kerry's Vietnam War heroism from a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth figured prominently in the 2004 Kerry-Bush race. Even Kerry has blamed his slow and uncertain response to the group's claims for helping to doom his White House chances, and Democrats viewed the Tuesday fracas as a test of that lesson.

"Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for this," Kerry said. "We are going to stay in their face with the truth."

Other Republicans, sensing opportunity for their side, piled on throughout the day with their own demands for an apology from Kerry.

GOP Sen. John McCain, like Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran and a potential 2008 rival, said while campaigning for Republican candidates in Indiana that "the suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today."

Added House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., struggling to keep his party in control of Congress: "Our soldiers risk their lives in the face of grave dangers on the battlefield, and no one who chooses to courageously and selflessly defend our country can be considered 'uneducated.'"

Separately, the White House issued President Bush's Veterans' Day proclamation praising those who have served in the armed forces - a week and a half before the holiday.

thedrifter

11-01-06, 04:01 PM

Kerry Drops a Bomb on the Democrats
November 1st, 2006

Why is there never a GOP couple parked at a Waffle House, innocently listening into cell phone conversations among Democrat political leaders in order to capture some history for their grandchildren? Actually we know the answer to that question, and it tells us a lot about the differences between the two parties.

Still it would be a ton of fun to hear what Nancy Pelosi, currently starring in her own production of The Invisible Woman, might have said to John F. Kerry about his now infamous remarks about uneducated and unprepared people getting stuck in Iraq. He has blown her cover and nationalized the off year elections, bringing attention to the Democrats’ Achilles Heel: their weakness on national security.

Kerry can back peddle and claim he was talking about President Bush all he wants. The words speak for themselves. If there was a botched joke, on what was the humor based? George Bush getting stuck because of a supposed lack of study must be seen in relation to something else in order to be ironic and funny. Surely there is no alternative to the presumption that losers get stuck in the Army as employment of last resort. The media, led by the New York Times, has been peddling this notion for a number of years. That’s what would make Kerry’s intended joke funny. Sort of. If you are a Democrat who hates the military and thinks soldiers are dupes.

Although he has not been openly condemned by the Democrat leadership, Kerry is being asked to stay away from previously scheduled campaign appearances with a number of Democrats. This denies the sort of opportunity conservative bloggers salivated over. For example, Powerline reported

At noon [today], he will be in Mankato with Democrat Tim Wal[z] at a “veterans’ rally.”

and remarked

That should be something to see! It would be nice if some protesters, veterans and others, turn up at these events.

But Walz wised up and cancelled. So far as I know, however, he is not denouncing Kerry, only hoping that he will join Nancy Pelosi in a witness protection program.

At bare minimum, Kerry’s blunder, and especially his compounding of it with his blustery press conference refusal to apologize and over-the-top rhetoric against the GOP, will help the GOP retain control of the Senate. The tight Southern Senate races in Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri are all in states where respect for the military is higher than the national average.

But if the GOP or some 527s start running ads featuring Kerry’s words and asking voters to ask their Democrat candidates to denounce Kerry, the damage could spread.

Of course, with 6 more days until the polls, the whole thing could quiet down. But unless Kerry changes his mind and suddenly reverses course (also known as flip flopping) today, demands that candidates take a position could well continue to grab attention through Election Day.

The fundamental problem for Kerry and the Democrats (whose nominee he was, after all, in the most recent presidential race) is that his botch played right into the existing stereotypes of the Democrats as effete elitists who are not to be trusted with the national defense.

Kerry’s bomb will almost certainly destroy his chances for another run at president, not that they were ever realistic. But his peculiar psychology, where the need to defend himself from suspicions of being a wimp apparently dominate common sense, suggests that he will continue to damage his party for a few days more.

If only Nancy Pelosi were in the habit of visiting Waffle Houses, and GOP operatives were in the habit of intercepting and recording rivals’ phone calls, we might know a lot more about what lies ahead.

Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of American Thinker.

Thomas Lifson

Ellie

Dave Coup

11-01-06, 05:16 PM

During WW II the Russians had a saying, it was basically "It's a long march from Moscow to Berlin, but it's not so bad when it's on the backs of dead Germans". That seems to be Kerry's philosophy only on the backs of U.S. Servicemen, from 1972 to present. Nothing I can wish on him is bad enough.

SF
Dave

usmc67

11-01-06, 05:19 PM

Maybe, just maybe, most of our military men and women have studied hard and made the effort, but were unable financially to pursue college. Maybe one of the reasons they joined the military is the education benefits. I know many, many servicemembers that have obtained college educations using their GI Bill benefits and tuition assistance. Maybe, they are just brave enough to risk their lives in the military so they can pursue that education. Not everyone is a blueblood or has the benefit of a rich wife.
Very well put Top ......

Semper Fi,
Paul Marquis

www.echo23marines6569

greensideout

11-01-06, 05:33 PM

Because of my dislike of John Kerry I must admit that I have enjoyed the long overdue melt down of the "classic malcontent" of the democratic party. I find it humorous that he has become the "useful idiot" of the republican party as a result of his comments. It's even more fun as it goes on to the watch him trip over his dick while trying to run from the light of day. What a Jerk!!!

ashtrophet

11-01-06, 05:57 PM

If it was such an innocent mistake why not correct it immediately instead of waiting? The sad thing is that he won't stay out of the light of day. I don't think he has the quarter of a brain cell needed to understand how badly he screwed himself and those around him. I just loved the further insults of his apology. That right there shows just how much of a mentally defecient degenerate he truly is. Someone ought to send him to Al Queda, maybe he'll get the acceptance he's so desperately seeking there.
For anyone out there that hasn't found this and wants to attempt emailing heres a link: http://kerry.senate.gov/text/contact/email.html
Supposedly that's his personal online office email.
Not that he'll bother responding. Remember anyone feeling insulted by his remark is just a crazy republican hack.

One very angry wife.

Zulu 36

11-01-06, 06:48 PM

Kerry is a Chinese communist hack and his apology is NOT accepted by me. If he really wants to prove he is sorry, he should resign from the Senate. I might consider accepting his apology then.

ballmagic

11-01-06, 07:44 PM

the marine corps is not democrat or republican. this ranting female's political opinion do not belong in a u.s.m.c. publication.... if that is not the case, then please let me know and i will delete it from my favorites.... maybe this just isn't the corps it used to be.

thedrifter

11-01-06, 08:15 PM

11/1/06-Tyler
Military Mom's Say Kerry's Comment Was Ignorant And Insulting

Pam McGee's son, Blake, decided to enlist in the Marines shortly after 9/11. When she heard the senator's comments, she says she was furious.

"I was incensed. I was angry. I was just appalled that he could sit there and say that. I just wanted to call him and say, 'Mr. Kerry, what you don't know is that my son had options. He could have gone to college. He chose to do this, because it was really important to him," says McGee.

At the age of 22, Corporal McGee has already been honored with a Purple Heart for his two tours of duty in Iraq. There, he was injured in two separate IED attacks, and took a ricochet round to the back of the head. When his service is finished in a year, Pam says her son will go to college.

"That may surprise Mr. Kerry. There are a lot of boys that are doing that. There are a lot of boys that is the very reason they decided to go into the service," says McGee.

Last April, Suzan Gill and her family watched her son Chris cut down a yellow ribbon. It was hanging around their tree while he fought in Afghanistan where he was also injured. Since his return, the Sam Houston State graduate has returned to his job as a pharmaceutical sales representative.

"There's just no way you could say his intelligence is any less, and that's what I felt this is. It is a slam on the intelligence of the United States Military," says Gill.

Both mothers say they couldn't be more proud their son's military service. While they disagree with the senator's comments, they say free speech is one thing their sons were fighting to protect.

Lindsay Wilcox/Reporting: lwilcox@kltv.com

Ellie

10thzodiac

11-01-06, 08:48 PM

I heard Bill O’Riley say on Fox, “Everybody knows the military is a blue collar thing.”
<O:p></O:p>
What do you think Bill O’Riely meant by that remark?
<O:p></O:p>
In my opinion, the only difference between what O’Riley said and that of what Kerry said was a better choice of words, Kerry’s words not being well thought out, and in hindsight thoughtlessly painful for him.
<O:p></O:p>
Everybody knows the majority of college kids are not cannon fodder, then who is?

Think for a minute, do you know any elected officials or their children that ever really serve like blue-collar kids are serving in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><ST1:place>Iraq</ST1:place></st1:country-region>? I bet, if they are of draft age, they are in college, while blue-collar kids are stuck in <st1:country-region><ST1:place>Iraq</ST1:place></st1:country-region>. No, blue-collar kids are not dumb, just unfortunate kids doing what our leaders would not do or let their kids do.
<O:p></O:p>
Before the war, former Marine Major Scott Ritter a UN weapons inspector said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, our leaders refused to believe him. Marine General Anthony Zinni advised our leaders that Saddam was no threat we had him contained; later after the war, saying the war is what the neo-cons wanted.
<O:p></O:p>
Are we being played by Rich men as fools de facto just to stubborn to admit it, while our leaders kids go to college, while ours are stuck in a war of folly?

<O:p></O:p>

10thzodiac

11-01-06, 08:51 PM

6yrforMar

11-02-06, 05:08 AM

Kerry is a real piece of sh..t,he loves to spew garbage from his big mouth.He is a perfect example of a rich,I know better than you stuffed shirt.His kind have no respect for the military,or the common folk of this country.He is typical of his party who put Party,Politics,People,Country in that order.He and his Ilk do not know that our enemies ,when they come knocking on his door,do not care about red states ,blue states,cutting and running.They will take your head off,take you out ,destroy everything here until they have their Islamic Sharia Laws!

Ninesquire

11-02-06, 06:23 AM

Off http://www.drudgereport.com/ Why do people still continue to listen to this man? What comes out of his mouth is pure rubbish! Ooh Rah! Semper Fi!

C:\Documents and Settings\FLBJC\Desktop\irak.jpg

YLDNDN6

11-02-06, 06:24 AM

The thing that really chaps my azz is that he is stupid enough to botch that line (supposedly) to begin with, and, doesn't have the common sense to correct himself. This is the type of intellectual heroism that will keep our young men and women from being condemned to the military??? He couldn't even sense that he may have pizzed off a good half of his constituency, he is so educationally advantaged. What a freaking putz. And, if you look at what it was that he was "supposed" to say, that doesn't come off too well either. Has he forgotten that the office of President also comes with the title Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces??? Even had he said it right, it would have been insulting to the entire military. This guy just needs to jump on the next swiftboat to anywhere out of the country and never show his face again. Dumb azz.

thedrifter

11-02-06, 06:53 AM

Kerryism
Victor Davis Hanson
Nov. 1, 2006

Kerry surely must be one of the saddest Democratic liabilities around. Some afterthoughts about his latest gaffe, which is one of those rare glimpses into an entire troubled ideology:

(1) How could John Kerry, born into privilege, and then marrying and divorcing and marrying out of and back into greater inherited wealth, lecture anyone at a city college about the ingredients for success in America? If he were to give personal advice about making it, it would have to be to marry rich women. Nothing he has accomplished as a senator or candidate reveals either much natural intelligence or singular education. Today, Democrats must be wondering why they have embraced an overrated empty suit, and ostracized a real talent like Joe Lieberman.

(2) How could Kerry possibly claim that he was thinking of the uneducated in the context of George Bush, who, after all, went to Harvard and Yale?

(3) Some of the brightest and most educated Americans are not only in the military, but veterans of Iraq. Two of the best educated minds I have met-Col. Bill Hix and Lt. Col. Chris Gibson, both Hoover Security Fellows-were both Iraqi veterans. What is striking about visiting Iraq is the wealth of talent there, from privates to generals. Without being gratuitously cruel, the problem of mediocrity is not in the ranks of the military, but on our university campuses, where half-educated professors and non-serious students killing time are ubiquitous. Personally, I'd wager the intelligence of a Marine Corps private any day over the average D.C. journalist. Every naval officer I met at the USNA, without exception, seemed brighter than John Kerry, whose "brilliance", after all, has managed to offend millions of voters on the eve of a pivotal election. If the Democrats lose, it will be almost painful to watch the recriminations against Kerry fly.

(4) This is not the first, but third, time he has denigrated soldiers in the middle of a war-and there is a systematic theme: John Kerry's assumed superior morality allows him to pass judgment from on high about supposedly lesser folk who become tools of a suspect military: thus we go from limb-loppers and Genghis' hordes to terrorists to dead-beats. The only constant is that the haughtiness is always delivered in the same sanctimonious, self-righteous, and patronizing tone.

(5) The mea culpa that Democrats are blaming the war and not the warriors is laughable after Sens. Durbin, Kennedy, and Kerry have collectively compared American soldiers to Nazis, Pol Pot's killers, Stalinists, terrorists, and Baathists.

(6) The problem is that Kerry is not just a senator, but the most recent presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, and thus in some sense, especially given the diminution of Howard Dean, the megaphone of the entire party.

(7) His pathetic clarification, as he blamed everyone from Tony Snow to Rush Limbaugh, displayed the same Al Gore derangement syndrome, and thus raises a larger question: what is it about George Bush that seems to reduce once sober and experienced liberal pros to infantile ranting?

(8) And why is the supposedly lame Bush so careful in speech, and the self-acclaimed geniuses like a Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, or Howard Dean serially spouting ever more stupidities? For all the Democrats' criticism of George Bush, I can't think of a modern President who has so infrequently put his foot in his public mouth, and, by the same token, can't think of any opposition that on the eve of elections seems to have an almost pathological death wish.

The Democrats should use this occasion to have an autopsy of Kerryism, or this strange new tony liberalism, that has turned noblisse oblige on its head. It used to be that millionaire FDRs and JFKs felt sympathy for those of the lower classes and wished to ensure that the hoi polloi had some shot at the American dream. But today's elite liberals-a Howard Dean, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, George Soros, Ted Turner-love the high life and playact at being leftists simply because they are already insulated from the effects of their own nostrums that always come at someone poorer's expense while providing them some sort of psychological relief from guilt. Poor Harry Truman must be turning over in his grave-from bourbon, cigars, and poker to wind-surfing and L.L. Bean costume of the day says it all.

MOUNTAINWILLIAM

11-02-06, 07:45 AM

TRUE WORDS FROM A POMPOUS ASS.

MOUNTAINWILLIAM

11-02-06, 07:49 AM

TRUE THOUGHTS (SHARED BY MANY OF HIS "GOOD BUDDYS" IN THE CONGRESS) FROM THIS POMPOUS ASS.

jinelson

11-02-06, 07:58 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/kerry_zellmiller.jpg

Your words and deeds and even your so called apology are unacceptable! You have once again shown your countrymen exactly what you are!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/116345.jpg

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:01 AM

Let Me Entertain You
By The Prowler
Published 11/2/2006 1:08:31 AM

According to a former Kerry 2004 presidential campaign staffer who has worked with the Kerry Senate offices to coordinate his appearances on behalf of Democrat candidates this year, Sen. John Kerry's prepared remarks last Monday included a slightly more detailed joke about being stuck in Iraq.

"The reason they had the joke in there was because of the crowd," the staffer says. "We'd told the office that there would be lots of MoveOn.org types, lots of young people at the event, so they gave him material to play to what we consider to be the important base of the party for next week. Kerry was playing to the crowd, giving them what the Democrats think they want to hear."

Kerry, though, claims he mangled the joke. On Wednesday a Kerry Senate staffer released to CNN what was claimed to be the actual text of Kerry's joke. It read: "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."

"I don't recall it reading that way on Monday," says a California Democrat Party official, who saw what he says were advanced prepared remarks for Kerry's appearance at the rally for the party's gubernatorial candidate. "But I may have been like the Senator and just didn't read it properly."

Kerry's gaffe and why he attempted to make the joke in the first place reveals the greatest weakness the Democrat Party has going into the final week of the campaign: its evolving base focused on the radicalized 20-somethings who gravitate to the left-wing, Soros-funded political organizations like MoveOn and websites such as the Democratic Underground.

"We have to energize those people, and you do it with cracks like Kerry's. That's just the reality of where we are as a party right now," says a Democrat political consultant in Washington. "It's frustrating, because while you need their energy and enthusiasm, it's not clear that they are going to perform in the same way the Republican base will. In other words, we just don't know if they are actually going to vote. Kerry's antics may have been doubling damaging, not only his own aspirations, but to those of the party, particularly if we lose next week."

Ellie

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:14 AM

November 02, 2006, 0:01 a.m. <br />
<br />
Senator Kerry, Media Darling <br />
The media have circled the wagons around the junior senator from Massachusetts. <br />
<br />
By Thomas Sowell <br />
<br />
Candidates are not the only major...

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:16 AM

November 02, 2006, 8:39 a.m. <br />
<br />
Hey, Stupid <br />
If you’re reading this in Iraq and wearing an American uniform, John Kerry is smarter than you. <br />
<br />
By Ed Morrow <br />
<br />
“You know, education, if you make the...

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 08:20 AM

I heard Bill O’Riley say on Fox, “Everybody knows the military is a blue collar thing.”
<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:p></O:p>
What do you think Bill O’Riely meant by that remark?
<O:p></O:p>
In my opinion, the only difference between what O’Riley said and that of what Kerry said was a better choice of words, Kerry’s words not being well thought out, and in hindsight thoughtlessly painful for him.
<O:p></O:p>
Everybody knows the majority of college kids are not cannon fodder, then who is?

Think for a minute, do you know any elected officials or their children that ever really serve like blue-collar kids are serving in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><ST1:place>Iraq</ST1:place></st1:country-region>? I bet, if they are of draft age, they are in college, while blue-collar kids are stuck in <st1:country-region><ST1:place>Iraq</ST1:place></st1:country-region>. No, blue-collar kids are not dumb, just unfortunate kids doing what our leaders would not do or let their kids do.
<O:p></O:p>
Before the war, former Marine Major Scott Ritter a UN weapons inspector said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, our leaders refused to believe him. Marine General Anthony Zinni advised our leaders that Saddam was no threat we had him contained; later after the war, saying the war is what the neo-cons wanted.
<O:p></O:p>
Are we being played by Rich men as fools de facto, just to stubborn to admit it, while our leaders kids go to college, while ours are stuck in our leaders war of folly, Iraq?

SF
10th

<O:p></O:p>

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHO SAID:

"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."

OR:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war." "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

AND:

"The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:23 AM

Kerry apologizes for insulting troops

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2006

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. (AP)

Sen. John Kerry bowed to bipartisan pressure yesterday and apologized for insulting U.S. troops earlier this week when he suggested that a lack of wits and poor academic performance had landed them on the front lines of Iraq.

"I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended," he said in a statement issued yesterday after both Democrats and Republicans rebuked him for the comments.

The apology came after Democratic campaign events with the 2004 presidential nominee were abruptly scrubbed in Philadelphia, Minnesota and Iowa. Democratic legislators Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee also criticized Mr. Kerry. Even Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, no stranger to gaffes, criticized the remark.

"Senator Kerry's remarks were poorly worded and just plain stupid," said Jon Tester, a Democrat running in a tight race against incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana. "He owes our troops and their families an apology."

Mr. Kerry, who lost in 2004 to President Bush, says he's still considering another run for the White House in 2008 and had been campaigning heavily for Democrats across the country running for Congress. In one sentence, Mr. Kerry managed to change the national conversation from the Republican handling of the war in Iraq to demands that he apologize to the troops.

"You know," Mr. Kerry said Monday at Pasadena City College in California, "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."

Radio host Don Imus, who had Mr. Kerry on his program yesterday morning, implored him to sit out the rest of the election, which most observers predict will be a boon for Democrats.

"Please stop it, stop talking," he said after introducing the junior senator from Massachusetts. "Go home, get on the bike, go windsurfing, anything. Stop it. You're going to ruin this."

Mr. Kerry insisted that the campaign events were canceled at his urging, but at least one candidate -- Bruce Braley in Iowa -- said he asked Mr. Kerry to pull out.

"I'm coming back to Washington today so that I'm not a distraction," Mr. Kerry said. "I don't want to be a distraction to these campaigns.'

No matter whose idea it was for Mr. Kerry to retreat, said one delighted Republican on Capitol Hill, "He's cutting and running from the campaign trail, after learning he was for his comments before he was against them."

Mr. Kerry said the insult was the result of a "botched" joke.

"If that's joking, he needs to work on his punch line," said James H. Webb Jr., the Virginia Democrat running for the Senate.

White House spokesman Tony Snow also was skeptical.
"Senator Kerry's words were pretty straightforward," he said in response to repeated questions from reporters. "If you listen to the tone of voice in which he said them, it's hard to construe them as a joke. He didn't sound like he was trying to make funnies."

In yesterday's apology, Mr. Kerry said he intended to take a swipe at Mr. Bush for getting the U.S. "stuck in Iraq."

But Mr. Kerry's initial response was to attack his attackers as "right wing nut-jobs." At a press conference in Seattle, he angrily said, "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy."

When the "right wing nut-jobs" were joined by many Democrats out campaigning, Mr. Kerry switched tacks.

A Kerry spokeswoman said the senator's prepared remarks had called for him to say: "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."

That particular approach is one that he and other Democrats generously employed during the 2004 campaign, portraying Mr. Bush as an intellectual lightweight who didn't belong in the Oval Office.

But academic records obtained last year by the Boston Globe revealed that Mr. Bush actually had a higher grade point average than Mr. Kerry did during their time at Yale. In his freshman year, Mr. Kerry got four D's in the ten courses he took.

• Jerry Seper and Christina Bellantoni contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.

Ellie

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:32 AM

Halp Us Jon Carry

by Matt Towery
Posted Nov 02, 2006

Let's not get lathered up worrying about what Sen. John Kerry meant when he contrasted the value of book learning to the value of getting shot at in a foreign war. Instead let's assess the public reaction and its possible impact on Tuesday's elections.

Parsing Kerry's words is a waste of time. Did he mean a lack of education might make one, like George W. Bush, an ignorant warmonger? Or only that hard work and hitting the books will keep one far away from the violent desert sands of volatile Iraq? Most informed speculators have adopted the second interpretation. But who knows?

Kerry blundered badly, and that's the point. He canceled campaign appearances with Democratic candidate hopefuls. Even Sen. Hillary Clinton -- probably for her own opportunistic reasons -- called for Kerry to apologize to American troops. Finally he did.

By now, quick Internet distribution and TV broadcasts have made common currency of the photograph of U.S. troops forming a line in the sand (literally) and holding a banner that reads, "Halp Us Jon Carry We R Stuck (c and k printed backward) in Irak."

The soldiers' message was clear, and apparently so was John Kerry's. Yes, he might have simply left out words from his statement that would have made it clear he was talking only about the president. No matter. These troops and their families took Kerry's "joke" as a direct insult. Unfortunately for Kerry's Democratic Party, a fair number of otherwise unmotivated Republican voters, and some independent ones, likely took offense, too.

The pregnant question now is whether the Kerry goof will rescue an entire election for the GOP. Perhaps not. Still, it has unquestionably put the brakes on the alleged Republican freefall that pollsters and pundits have been declaring for weeks. At the least, the senator's remarks might reverse Democratic fortunes in scattered close races, especially in the South.

Look at the places President Bush has campaigned in the last week. One key congressional race is in Georgia's District 12. Our latest InsiderAdvantage survey showed former Republican Congressman Max Burns barely trailing incumbent Democrat John Barrow.

In the same state, Bush also stopped off to help former Congressman Mac Collins as he tries to unseat Democrat Jim Marshall.

As little as a month ago, neither of these Republicans was given a chance of winning. But both of these districts have strong military ties and big blocs of independent swing voters. Deft use of Kerry's remarks could be the fillip needed to energize disenchanted Republican or lethargic independent voters to weigh in for the pro-military Republicans.

In Florida, the topsy-turvy race to replace resigned and disgraced Republican Congressman Mark Foley is suddenly being viewed by top political analysts as up for grabs. That, even though Foley resigned too late to take his name off the ballot and substitute the name of the Republican replacing him as the candidate. That means state Rep. Joe Negron must persuade voters to check the name of the now-reviled Foley in order to elect Negron. But it's a Republican district, and the electric voltage of Kerry's misstep could persuade voters to reject the conservative Democrat Tim Mahoney.

Then there's Tennessee. Democratic Congressman Harold Ford Jr. is in a nationally prominent battle against Republican and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker. Within 24 hours of Kerry's statement, Ford was distancing himself from Kerry's remarks in a big way.

Ford has slipped slightly in the last week's polls. The last thing he needs is to be defending John Kerry instead of attacking Bob Corker. Complicating matters for Ford, he's trying to become an African-American, Democratic senator in a Deep South state. That's news in itself. He doesn't need bad news creeping in from points north.

In today's political world, major gaffes become minor blips overnight. Kerry's ill-spoken words may get drowned in a cascade of negative TV ads and the overwhelming volume of political news in these last days before the election.

The task at hand for the Republicans is to be bold enough to take Kerry's statement to the airwaves and into the field for grassroots, get-out-the-vote efforts. They might do well to recognize the power of images over mere words, or, in this case, an image of words -- misspelled words. Those soldiers' banner could become history if it makes for a surprise banner year for Republicans. Regardless, the Democrats aren't likely to soon turn to John Kerry for any more "halp."

Ellie

thedrifter

11-02-06, 08:34 AM

John Kerry: The Kamikaze Kid <br />
<br />
by Michael Reagan <br />
Posted Nov 02, 2006 <br />
<br />
If the American people need a single reason why they desperately need to vote to keep the Congress in Republican hands next...

sgtrock1970

11-02-06, 08:36 AM

As Marine green has just stated they are all phoney azzed crooks and liars. Even ole Mizz Hiliary has condemned numbnuts Kerry, Do you think that might be a bit politically motivated.

fromainesr

11-02-06, 08:59 AM

Well another big mouth who thinks he is a hero. Let him have a mike and he is the biggest fool in the world. He puts his foot in his mouth every time. No wonder he is not the president. (Thank GOD).:usmc:

Ed Palmer

11-02-06, 09:29 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/cid_000501c6fe91cfa073f06401a8c0you.jpg

drumcorpssnare

11-02-06, 09:32 AM

"Horse-face" Kerry's apology is too little, too late. He only apologized because 'he had to.' He'a a useless bag of rat puke!

drumcorpssnare:usmc:

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 11:00 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/28/nmil28.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/28/ixhome.html

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

(Filed: 28/03/2004)

Half of all recruits to Army read at level of 11-year-olds



<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>A confidential study into the educational standards of soldiers has revealed that half of all new infantry recruits only have the reading and writing skills of 11-year-olds.
The study commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, which the Telegraph has seen, also discloses that a fifth of recruits have the literacy and numeracy levels of seven-year-olds. Four per cent are at the standard of the average five-year-old.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=207 align=right border=0 hspace="0"><TBODY><TR><TD width=8 rowSpan=2></TD><TD width=199><CENTER>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2004/03/28/nmil28.gif (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2004/03/28/nmil28big.gif;jsessionid=WDFRQGVJMNYERQFIQMGCFF4AV CBQUIV0)</CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption><CENTER>Click to enlarge (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2004/03/28/nmil28big.gif;jsessionid=WDFRQGVJMNYERQFIQMGCFF4AV CBQUIV0)</CENTER></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Among the problems uncovered were one soldier who admitted that he struggled to write letters to his young daughter and another who wrote "riht" for write, "cepe" instead of keep, and "rifel" for rifle.
The findings have raised fears among defence chiefs that soldiers of the future may not be able to operate the new generation of "smart" weapon systems that will dictate how battles are fought. Officers, who are more highly qualified, were not included in the study.
Within the next 10 years, the Army will be issued with equipment that will require all frontline soldiers to be computer literate and numerically literate if they are to fight and survive on the battlefield. They will also need to be able to read and understand ever-more complicated training manuals.
By 2010, the Ministry of Defence plans to equip the Army with a new fleet of armoured vehicles linked by a computer network and equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, communications and target-finding equipment available.
The £2 billion programme will become a cornerstone of the Army and will be used by basic tank and infantry soldiers, who will require a high degree of computer literacy to operate it.
The study into the educational standards of recruits was based on the results of 2,000 basic skills assessments of new privates compiled by Melanie Dickinson, a civilian instructor at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, North Yorkshire.
It reveals that four per cent of new recruits possessed a basic skill level equivalent to a five-year-old; 20 per cent equivalent to a seven-year-old; 50 per cent equivalent to an 11-year-old and 26 per cent had literacy levels equivalent to GCSE grades D to G in English and mathematics.
The reports states that there is a growing belief within the Army that believes that soldiers should be screened at recruiting centres for basic skills and those who are not up to an acceptable standard should be rejected.
Ms Dickinson admits, however, that this could create problems. "This could mean that the infantry would lose at least 25 per cent of its recruits in one go - and my own experience of 16 years in the Army tells me that you would also lose many good soldiers."
The report adds: "Nowadays there are very few soldiers who are entirely illiterate or innumerate, but there are a lot of soldiers who can't cope with the level of written information they are expected to understand."
The report goes on to say that the lowest educational level at which soldiers are accepted into the Army, called Basic Skills Level 1, is "widely accepted as the minimum level required to work and function in society in general".
No educational qualifications are necessary for privates seeking to join the Army, except for those who wish to train in technical trades such as signals, the Army Air Corps or the the various corps of engineers.
An applicant's suitability for a particular form of employment is determined by the results of an initial assessment, using computer touch-screen questions and answers.
A senior Army officer told the Telegraph: "Just because soldiers have literacy or numeracy issues, it does not mean they are stupid. Some of these individuals have very high IQs but they have been very poorly educated. There are soldiers serving in the SAS who struggle with reading and writing, yet they survive and become first-class soldiers, but they are the exception.
"The problem the Army faces is that the demands of modern military technology means that soldiers must possess more than the most basic of educational skills.
"In the very near future the basic infantryman will have to operate satellite navigation and target acquisition equipment in highly stressful conditions. If he can't read and write very well he will struggle to make the grade."

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 11:11 AM

http://www.drudgereport.com/irak.jpg

rktect3j

11-02-06, 11:23 AM

Are we being played by Rich men as fools de facto, just to stubborn to admit it, while our leaders kids go to college, while ours are stuck in our leaders war of folly, Iraq?

<O:p></O:p>

I like when people try and make their case by pointing out other peoples families children are not serving their country in the military. For some reason I see this coming from the left all the time. "Why aren't the senators or congressman’s families serving like the rest of the country?" Well guess what? They are. Here are the numbers I found.

There are now 3000,000,000 people living in America. According to the US census the average household is 2.6 people. That means that there are 115,384,000 housholds. There are 535 elected officials/households in congress and the senate. Of which I can find 12 members with family serving in our military. There are 1.4 million in active duty and 1.2 million in the reserves. That is 2.6 million. So that means the average household percentage is .0025%. In real numbers this is 1 military member per 44.25 households. Now our elected officials are at 1 per 44.58. I think this sums up the problem quit well.

To get to my real point though. My boss has three children and my other has one. When I hear idiots say they wish their elected officials would force their own children to join the military I think what dumb asses. This don’t make a lick of sense to me. Getting back to my boss’s children. Not one of them has been forced to be in the field of their parents. So why should our elected officials force their children to join the military? Logically speaking, from the leftists mentality, they should be forcing them into elected office, not the military. As it is many of their children are serving, percentage wise.

What does make sense would be that the people who are serving in an elected position should have had to be in the military. We should make it mandatory. Then we should make sure that they don’t have a criminal record. Then they can run for office. Doesn’t that make more sense in the grand scheme of things here?

eddief

11-02-06, 12:09 PM

Kerry botches a joke about Bush. Bush botches the war in Iraq because he didn't know the history of sectarian tension in Iraq.

Who's really the **** up?

rktect3j

11-02-06, 12:23 PM

Kerry botches a joke about Bush. Bush botches the war in Iraq because he didn't know the history of sectarian tension in Iraq.

Who's really the **** up?

Oh brother. Nice reasoning skills.

wyattglock

11-02-06, 12:25 PM

I don't want to come across as saying that I have a lot of love for every officer in our beloved Corps, but I wonder what they think about being called stupid by a Senator when they HAVE to complete a college education just to wear the bars on their lapels. I know of several enlisted men who have also completed college and just don't want to go the officer way, does that make them any dumber than the rest of them? This is just another typical case of an ignorant person trying to sound smarter than the rest of us.

eddief

11-02-06, 12:28 PM

Oh brother. Nice reasoning skills.

Better than the reasoning skills Bush had: attacked by Al Qaida so go after Saddam who had nothing to do with 9/11 and was contained by our no fly zones.

Brilliant move Dubya.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 12:38 PM

Better than the reasoning skills Bush had: attacked by Al Qaida so go after Saddam who had nothing to do with 9/11 and was contained by our no fly zones.

Brilliant move Dubya.
I'l play your silly game here.

Who is more screwed up? The man (bush) who did not volunteer to fight in a war like vietnam and who did not later cost American lives by his inactions or the one who made the vietnam war fail (kerry) causing 1000's of American military deaths with his BS after his service with his "investigation"?

eddief

11-02-06, 12:46 PM

I'l play your silly game here.

Who is more screwed up? The man (bush) who did not volunteer to fight in a war like vietnam and who did not later cost American lives by his inactions or the one who made the vietnam war fail (kerry) causing 1000's of American military deaths with his BS after his service with his "investigation"?

I don't care to rehash Vietnam with you. If you want to talk current issues I will. I don't believe in picking at old wounds and I won't be goaded into it.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 12:48 PM

I don't care to rehash Vietnam with you. If you want to talk current issues I will. I don't believe in picking at old wounds and I won't be goaded into it.
Excellent choice. Wrong reason. It isn't like we would want to hold everyone accountable for their actions.

eddief

11-02-06, 12:56 PM

Excellent choice. Wrong reason. It isn't like we would want to hold everyone accountable for their actions.

Hopefully one day Bush will have to face accountability for his actions concerning Iraq and his trampling of habeus corpus.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 01:02 PM

Hopefully one day Bush will have to face accountability for his actions concerning Iraq and his trampling of habeus corpus.
Just another Bush hater. Can't see past it. If you want accountability you can not be rightious unless we start back at the beginning. You would rather ignore the past so in that vein let's ignore the past. I say the reasons for going to Iraq are in the past therefore Bush is off limits today. Now, how would you like to proceed in our attempt to make accountable those who should be held accountable? I mean if it is all in the past as you say, how do we start?

eddief

11-02-06, 01:21 PM

Just another Bush hater. Can't see past it. If you want accountability you can not be rightious unless we start back at the beginning. You would rather ignore the past so in that vein let's ignore the past. I say the reasons for going to Iraq are in the past therefore Bush is off limits today. Now, how would you like to proceed in our attempt to make accountable those who should be held accountable? I mean if it is all in the past as you say, how do we start?

I don't hate Bush. Just don't agree with his Iraq policy and trampling all over the Constitution. And I never said to ignore the past. I just don't feel like going round and round in circles with you over Vietnam. Got that?

And when did I say nobody should be held accountable for past actions? By all means hold Kerry accountable for his mistakes. Swiftboat his ass for all I care. I just find Bush's mistakes which have gotten our troops killed to be more egregious.

yellowwing

11-02-06, 01:27 PM

You are not alone Eddie. The majority of folks don't believe that things are all rosy in Iraq. From hard ass generals to those who push a broom for a living.

Even the Boss is finally acknowledging it.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 01:32 PM

I don't hate Bush. Just don't agree with his Iraq policy and trampling all over the Constitution. And I never said to ignore the past. I just don't feel like going round and round in circles with you over Vietnam. Got that?

And when did I say nobody should be held accountable for past actions? By all means hold Kerry accountable for his mistakes. Swiftboat his ass for all I care. I just find Bush's mistakes which have gotten our troops killed to be more egregious.

When you get done with your selective memory game and get back on topic of this thread, which happens to be Kerry and his remark, then maybe we can talk. Until then I won't fall for your bait and switch tactics. Stay focused please.

6yrforMar

11-02-06, 01:33 PM

The Photo is great,it rubs Kerry right in the face.The photo also made the news on CNN.He supposely apologized but everyone knows he does not mean it.He is all sour grapes for losing in 04.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 01:34 PM

You are not alone Edddie. The majority of folks don't believe that things are all rosy in Iraq. From hard ass generals to those who push a broom for a living.

Even the Boss is finally acknowledging it.
So who is painting a rosy picture? I just want to stay on topic around here and hope people wont be manipulated into poor reasoning for someone elses agenda.

yellowwing

11-02-06, 01:41 PM

marinegreen

11-02-06, 02:06 PM

Perhaps you were unaware of it, but VP Cheney was a Naval aviator (active duty) in his younger days. This is a common mistake for those who base their information on DNC press releases.

B.S. Cheney never wore a uniform, and if he did it was for dress up with his daughter !!:devious:

rktect3j

11-02-06, 02:14 PM

The topic is Kerry. I think that perhaps he made his gaff to keep the heat off of those actually running for election next Tuesday. Even Democratic figures are lining up to take a whack at him.

And also to keep the spotlight on Iraq. Reminding the public of their already instilled angst of the war. A couple of days ago all the news could talk about was Limbaugh and Michael J Fox and stem cells.

Kerry's ass clown blunder put the focus on Iraq again. Exactly what the Party Cheifs wanted. And everyone is falling for it.

In order for this to make sense to me you would have to explain to me Hillary’s response to Kerry’s statement. You see, I believe that there are a few people on the left jockeying for position in order to make a run at president on 2008. Kerry is one of them. With this statement he destroys that bid. He just called 24 million veterans and active/reserve duty members stupid. We know that these people have a higher percentage for voting. Lets call that 18-20 million. Around 100 million voted in the last election so you can see that this is a large number. Hillary then condemns Kerry for his remarks. So he took one for the gipper, eh? That don’t make any sense unless you believe that Hillary is on the outside of her own party and is willing to use Kerry’s sacrifice for her own agenda and advantage.

Kerry is an elitist who just don’t have the common sense God gave a brick. It is just that simple. The scary thing is that the Massachusetts lemmings fall for this nut, election after election. Of course he still looks good standing next to Kennedy.

marinegreen

11-02-06, 02:24 PM

Come on people ! you actually think that nim rod kerry would call our men and women wearing the uniform stupid ? "WAKE THE FUQ UP!" The guy was trying to be funny and he stuck his foot in his mouth, I've done it and know damn good and well you have too. Hey Bush is our Prez and we're suppose to respect him, well I say B.S. to that notion,he's a lying fuq who only cares about his rich buddies who actually run this country. Call me what you want cuz I dont give a rats azz one way or another, this admin suqs and I would say it to your face. Let me be frank though,I hate all the fuq'en politicians we have now, to bad they all wouldnt just shrivel up and blow away like other dried up dog chit. I am loyal to one entity; THE U.S. Marine Corps !! SF.
MG:D

outlaw3179

11-02-06, 03:45 PM

6yrforMar

11-02-06, 03:51 PM

You know Kerry Voted for it before he voted against it [to invade Iraq]he fell for the same BS that the president fell for,its called faulty intelligence.Kerry is a true elitist,has disdain for the military like our last great president.By the way he never wore a uniform,and he was a true draft dodger.

yellowwing

11-02-06, 05:21 PM

But he's got us talking about him. That's his goal. Love him or hate him, his handlers really go by the axiom, "There is no bad press."

It's really a tough day for the Republic, one side did go to Viet Nam and then shat upon the warriors afterwards, and the other side did what ever they could to avoid even going In Country.

In the end I only have faith in The Corps. We will always be there and we will always do our job. Can we all agree upon that?

OLE SARG

11-02-06, 06:45 PM

ms kerry, unknowingly, is working for the Republicans now!!!!!!! Keep up the good work you worthless piece of whale****e!!!!

SEMPER FI,

yellowwing

11-02-06, 06:53 PM

Yes, SSgt, keep talking about it. That's what this elitist politician wants you to do. The focus is on him and Iraq.

He's got no plan for a long term Republic. Security is a guessing game for him. He and all other politicians will have to check the latest public opinion polls first.

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 07:01 PM

I like when people try and make their case by pointing out other peoples families children are not serving their country in the military. For some reason I see this coming from the left all the time. "Why aren't the senators or congressman’s families serving like the rest of the country?" Well guess what? They are. Here are the numbers I found.

There are now 3000,000,000 people living in America. According to the US census the average household is 2.6 people. That means that there are 115,384,000 housholds. There are 535 elected officials/households in congress and the senate. Of which I can find 12 members with family serving in our military. There are 1.4 million in active duty and 1.2 million in the reserves. That is 2.6 million. So that means the average household percentage is .0025%. In real numbers this is 1 military member per 44.25 households. Now our elected officials are at 1 per 44.58. I think this sums up the problem quit well.

To get to my real point though. My boss has three children and my other has one. When I hear idiots say they wish their elected officials would force their own children to join the military I think what dumb asses. This don’t make a lick of sense to me. Getting back to my boss’s children. Not one of them has been forced to be in the field of their parents. So why should our elected officials force their children to join the military? Logically speaking, from the leftists mentality, they should be forcing them into elected office, not the military. As it is many of their children are serving, percentage wise.

What does make sense would be that the people who are serving in an elected position should have had to be in the military. We should make it mandatory. Then we should make sure that they don’t have a criminal record. Then they can run for office. Doesn’t that make more sense in the grand scheme of things here?

rktect3j Your mubo-jumbo math is smoke in mirrors
ABC NEWS

Aug. 3, 2006 — Thanks to Sen. John McCain's youngest son checking into Marine Corps boot camp, the number of Congress members with enlisted children will skyrocket a whopping 50 percent. McCain's son Jim joins two other enlisted service members who have a parent in Congress (a few members of the officer corps are children of federal legislators).

I may only have 2 1/2 years of HS http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/27.gif but smart enough to know 1 + 2 = 3...I'm not stupid.http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/04.gif

SF
10th

yellowwing

11-02-06, 07:06 PM

I cannot find anytring on Dick Cheney's son in our Corps. Does anyone know his name? That would help.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 07:07 PM

Its called a Freudian slip, he may not have wanted to say it ....but the ****er did.....and dont think for a minute that he really cares about servicemen or that he cares about us. Hes a piece of **** , **** him. That ********** said what he really thinks and thats the reason why he took so damn long to apologize. Ill defend my president and not that horse looking mother****er.
Errr. OoohfuqinRah. I like what you got to say outlaw. Lets face it. When Mel Gibson siad what he said, nobody for one moment thought he didn't mean it. All of a sudden Kerry says something he automatically gets the door prize. Screw him. He said what he meant. Then he waited for the response to come to see if he could get away with his slip up. Found out he couldn't so he did damage control. He is going to need more then tom thumb for this damm though.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 07:14 PM

rktect3j Your mubo-jumbo math is smoke in mirrors
ABC NEWS

Aug. 3, 2006 — Thanks to Sen. John McCain's youngest son checking into Marine Corps boot camp, the number of Congress members with enlisted children will skyrocket a whopping 50 percent. McCain's son Jim joins two other enlisted service members who have a parent in Congress (a few members of the officer corps are children of federal legislators).

I may only have 2 1/2 years of HS http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/27.gif but smart enough to know 1 + 2 = 3...I'm not stupid.http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/04.gif

SF
10th
1. You need to be smart enough to read english here.
2. After being able to read, you need to work on reading comprehension.
3. Hint. Check my post to see if I said children.
4. This is still based on households and family members so my numbers still jive.

They make even better sense if you wrangle it down to eligibility in the military. Such as age based. Obviously a 2 yr old can't serve and neither can 45 year olds enlist. How many congressmens sons/ daughters have ever served who are currently sitting on capital hill?

Now how about a response to the rest of the argument? Or are you just focusing on this aspect?

I'll repost:

To get to my real point though. My boss has three children and my other has one. When I hear idiots say they wish their elected officials would force their own children to join the military I think what dumb asses. This don’t make a lick of sense to me. Getting back to my boss’s children. Not one of them has been forced to be in the field of their parents. So why should our elected officials force their children to join the military? Logically speaking, from the leftists mentality, they should be forcing them into elected office, not the military. As it is many of their children are serving, percentage wise.

Does it make sense that we force someone elses child into the military to you? Do you find that feeling you have when you say such a thing to be American?

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 07:15 PM

I cannot find anytring on Dick Cheney's son in our Corps. Does anyone know his name? That would help.

He's in the "Armies Underground Balloon Corps"! http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/27.gif

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 07:18 PM

1. You need to be smart enough to read english here.
2. After being able to read, you need to work on reading comprehension.
3. Hint. Check my post to see if I said children.
4. This is still based on households and family members so my numbers still jive.

They make even better sense if you wrangle it down to eligibility in the military. Such as age based. Obviously a 2 yr old can't serve and neither can 45 year olds enlist. How many congressmens sons/ daughters have ever served who are currently sitting on capital hill?

Now how about a response to the rest of the argument? Or are you just focusing on this aspect?

I'll repost:

To get to my real point though. My boss has three children and my other has one. When I hear idiots say they wish their elected officials would force their own children to join the military I think what dumb asses. This don’t make a lick of sense to me. Getting back to my boss’s children. Not one of them has been forced to be in the field of their parents. So why should our elected officials force their children to join the military? Logically speaking, from the leftists mentality, they should be forcing them into elected office, not the military. As it is many of their children are serving, percentage wise.

Does it make sense that we force someone elses child into the military to you? Do you find that feeling you have when you say such a thing to be American?

But I know when someone is pulling my cork http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/18.gif

Don't be so hard on me about English you might prove Kerry right !

eddief

11-02-06, 07:32 PM

When you get done with your selective memory game and get back on topic of this thread, which happens to be Kerry and his remark, then maybe we can talk. Until then I won't fall for your bait and switch tactics. Stay focused please.

My take on the Kerry sideshow is that it was a botched joke about Bush. I'm not offended by a botched joke about that SOB.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 07:41 PM

But I know when someone is pulling my cork http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/18.gif

Don't be so hard on me about English you might prove Kerry right !

Well here is another tidbit.

The average age of the 109th Congress (both Houses combined) is 56 years, believed to be the oldest in U.S. history.

The Senate average age is 60, also the oldest average in history, while the House average is 55. The youngest member is Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-NC, age 29. The oldest is Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, age 87. The dean of the House is Rep. John Dingell, D-MI, who has served 49 consecutive years.

One hundred forty-one members of Congress, or roughly one in four, have had some form of military service. Of these, Rep. Wilson is one of just three graduates of one of the U.S. service academies. The number with military service has declined by 27 members over the past four years, believed to be due to the passage of time since the last military draft.

The 83 women serving in the House this year is also a record.

A large majority of members of Congress have college educations, and 229 senators and representatives hold law degrees. Rep. Wilson is one of 20 House members with a doctorate, and one of five Rhodes Scholars in the House.

So we know the average household is 2.6. We are fairly certain that the guy who is serving and is 29 probably don't have a son or daughter old enough to serve and the guy who is 87, well his children are collecting social security, right? So how many do you think have children that are eligible?

It really don't matter because the truth is that you, me and any other true blue American has no right to force anothers children to do a damm thing and that type of rhetoric only serves to make the person look more imbicilic. (That may or may not be a word.) So I may have made the numbers seem better for my agenda. Fuzzy math so to speak. I do this when I see the lefts math adding up wrong. Anybody can do it. We can all look at the facts we want to see. Just a matter of twisting it a bit after that.

rktect3j

11-02-06, 07:44 PM

You know, you can hate the one and also the other. Don't give into the other side just because you have had enough of the man in charge. Kerry is not your friend. You can bank on that eddief.

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 09:07 PM

Well here is another tidbit.

So we know the average household is 2.6. We are fairly certain that the guy who is serving and is 29 probably don't have a son or daughter old enough to serve and the guy who is 87, well his children are collecting social security, right? So how many do you think have children that are eligible?

It really don't matter because the truth is that you, me and any other true blue American has no right to force anothers children to do a damm thing and that type of rhetoric only serves to make the person look more imbicilic. (That may or may not be a word.) So I may have made the numbers seem better for my agenda. Fuzzy math so to speak. I do this when I see the lefts math adding up wrong. Anybody can do it. We can all look at the facts we want to see. Just a matter of twisting it a bit after that.

It could be argued college or cannon fodder, "Stupid is as stupid does" ~ Forrest Gump

jinelson

11-02-06, 09:27 PM

By 10thzodiac - It could be argued college or cannon fodder, "Stupid is as stupid does" ~ Forrest Gump

Kerry is as Kerry does and thats real stupid!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24137-Medical-Careers-in-the-Milita.jpg

greensideout

11-02-06, 09:31 PM

It could be argued college or cannon fodder, "Stupid is as stupid does" ~ Forrest Gump

We had college grads and high school dropouts serving together in the units that I served in. Didn't seem to be any difference. I think that the Marine Corps training levels the field. We all worked together as a team. This was when the Corps was voluntary, no draft.

jinelson

11-02-06, 09:37 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24138-Elite-Recruiting-Poster_w.jpg

Hildabeast Clinton discussing the humor of Kerry's joke!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/hillaryflappingg5.gif

jinelson

11-02-06, 09:49 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24126-Good-enough-for-Kerry_w.jpg

Follow John Hanoi Kerry and you can........

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24142-Kerry-s-Poster_w.jpg

greensideout

11-02-06, 10:49 PM

We had college grads and high school dropouts serving together in the units that I served in. Didn't seem to be any difference. I think that the Marine Corps training levels the field. We all worked together as a team. This was when the Corps was voluntary, no draft..

greensideout

11-02-06, 11:10 PM

^^ People like Kerry just don't get it. ^^

10thzodiac

11-02-06, 11:22 PM

It's either too dumb to realize John Kerry referred to President Bush and not the troops, or it's too tempting not to try to turn it into more false flag-waving."

Maybe you just fell off the turnip truck, but if I'm going to fight for something, it'll be the "Bill of Rights" and our Coastline, not for Bush and Chaney's Iraqi oil.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="60%" align=center><TBODY><TR><TD bgColor=#b0e2ff>I was a Gangster for Capitalism

by Major General Smedley Butler

November 1935

<HR><TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=8 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.doublestandards.org/smedleybutler.jpg

Major General Smedley Butler

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country's most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel that I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents. Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940) was at the time of his death the most decorated U.S. Marine in history. He was twice the recipient of the Medal of Honor, one of only nineteen to be so honored.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

http://www.alba.org.uk/images/warcriminals.jpg

It was Adolf Hitler who said: "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think." and, also, "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."

<O:p></O:p>

SF
10th

greensideout

11-02-06, 11:49 PM

thedrifter

11-03-06, 06:21 AM

Rosa Brooks: Was Kerry right?
The military isn't full of poor, uneducated kids, but it doesn't look anything like America.
November 3, 2006

SINCE John Kerry "botched" a joke and implied that those without education "get stuck in Iraq," political leaders from both parties have been piously describing U.S. troops as valiant young Einsteins in desert camouflage. But deep down, a lot of them probably think Kerry is right.

If those grunts were half as smart as members of Congress, they'd be on Capitol Hill getting sucked up to by lobbyists instead of sucking up dust in Baghdad's bloody alleys — right?

Most of our current political leaders didn't waste any time serving in the military. Like Vice President Dick Cheney, they had "other priorities." As recently as 1994, 44% of members of Congress were veterans. Today, it's only 26%. And despite the mandatory "I adore our heroic troops" rhetoric, most on Capitol Hill aren't steering their own children toward military service. Only about 1% of U.S. representatives and senators have a son or daughter in uniform.

For many in Congress, serving in the military is a fine thing to do — for all those poor schmoes who don't have any better options, that is.

During the Vietnam War, the controversial student deferments helped keep most affluent and educated young men out of the military, while those without college opportunities were far more likely to be drafted. Today, the military continues to attract many young men and women from less-affluent families by offering job training and scholarships.

But recent studies of military demographics suggest that today's military is neither uneducated nor poor. Statistically, the enlisted ranks of the military are drawn mainly from neighborhoods that are slightly more affluent than the norm. The very poor are actually underrepresented in the military, relative to the number of very poor people in the population.

That's mainly because the military won't accept the lowest academic achievers. The Army limits recruits without high school degrees to 3 1/2 % of the pool, for instance, while the Marines won't accept recruits without high school degrees. Poverty correlates strongly with high school dropout rates, so these rules significantly limit the access of the very poor to military service.

At the same time, they ensure that enlisted members of the military are more likely than members of the general population to have high school degrees. The same pattern holds for commissioned officers. In 2004, for instance, only 4.2% of officers lacked college degrees, and a whopping 37% held an advanced degree of some sort, compared to only 10% of adults nationwide.

The myth that the military is mainly the province of the poor and the uneducated is grossly misleading, and it's also dangerous. It obscures the far more worrisome gaps that have recently emerged between the military and civilian society.

Demographically, the military is profoundly different from civilian society. It's drawn disproportionately from households in rural areas, for one thing. For another, the South and Southwest are substantially overrepresented within the military, while the Northeast is dramatically underrepresented.

Compared to civilians, members of the military are significantly more religious, and they're also far more likely to be Republicans. A 2005 Military Times poll found that 56% of military personnel described themselves as Republicans, and only 13% described themselves as Democrats. Nationwide, most polls suggest that people who define themselves as Democrats outnumber those defining themselves as Republicans.

And though the average member of the military is neither poor nor uneducated, social and economic elites are dramatically underrepresented in the military.

Frank Schaeffer — coauthor with Kathy Roth-Douquet of "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service" and "Baby Jack," a novel about a father who loses his Marine son in Iraq — notes that the percentage of enlisted military personnel from households with more than $60,000 in annual income is close to zero. Military recruiters don't even both to recruit in affluent neighborhoods: They know no one's going to sign up. At elite universities — Harvard, Stanford and Yale, for instance — the percentage of graduates who enter the military is minuscule.

All this should bother us — a lot. The United States needs a strong and adaptable military — and in this globalized world, the importance of the military both in U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics is likely to increase, not decrease, in the coming decades. But a democracy needs a military that's not radically out of step with the values and hopes of civilians; and those who volunteer to risk their lives in our name deserve civilian leaders who understand something about the realities of service and combat. If we want an effective military that serves a healthy democracy, political and economic elites ought to shoulder more of the burden.

If political elites don't like the thought of getting stuck in Iraq themselves, they should consider the results of a recent study. Duke University researchers Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi analyzed data from the period between 1816 and 1992 and found that "as the percentage of veterans serving in the executive branch and the legislature increases, the probability that the United States will initiate militarized disputes declines by nearly 90%."

Want to make sure that the U.S. never again gets stuck in a pointless and aggressive war? Draft Congress!

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

Ellie

jinelson

11-03-06, 06:42 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24129-Kerry-Cares_w.jpg

jinelson

11-03-06, 07:02 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24134-John-Kerry_w.jpg

marinegreen

11-03-06, 07:03 AM

Whats sad is we have people like the kerrys,murthas,foleys,bushs,cheneys,kennedys,cunni nghams,Hasterts,allens,yatta,yatta,yatta making our laws of the land. I think its safe for me to say; "WE'RE FRUGGED !" Man -o-man,we have 2 yrs of post election crap to put up with on the TV,radio,coffee houses,office,grocery stores. I'm gonna do my damnest to not go postal and break out the weaponery !!!

jinelson

11-03-06, 07:28 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24145-Dumb-Dumber-and-Dumbest_w.jpg

thedrifter

11-03-06, 07:34 AM

Shame on Him
John Kerry picked the wrong people to insult.

BY RONALD R. GRIFFIN
Friday, November 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

I missed the joke. You must forgive me, for there just is not a lot of room in my life for even good jokes--and there is absolutely no room for "botched jokes"--when the subject of the joke is my son who was killed in Iraq. I know exactly what came out of Sen. John Kerry's mouth, and in those words there is no interpretation required. His attempt to convince us--and, I believe, to convince himself that that there was really a botched joke buried deep within his insult is in fact a reaffirmation of his ever-present condescending nature. He actually believes that we are stupid enough to agree with him and start laughing simply because he said it was a joke. Mr. Kerry said exactly what he meant and meant exactly what he said. In those words Mr. Kerry did in fact wash completely away the facade of his support of our magnificent troops and revealed for all to see his true colors.

All one had to do is look into the face of Mr. Kerry as the last word came out of his mouth, and it was painfully obvious that he knew that he had just disparaged the entire military. As the firestorm grew, the calls for an apology filled me with unease. It is not up to him to determine if an apology is in order. That decision most certainly rests with the millions of individuals he offended, and then they would decide if they were going to accept one or not.

As Sen. Kerry began his soon-to-be-reversed "I apologize to no one" rebuttal to a call for an apology, I was driving by the memorial built in honor of Kyle, my son, and the other fallen heroes from my town. As I listened, I tried unsuccessfully to make sense of the meteor shower of thoughts that were streaking through my mind. Then came one remembrance that brought all those other thoughts to an instantaneous halt. Last year I had written an editorial and I received a number of written replies. Among those was one postmarked from San Diego addressed simply to "the father of a hero" and my town of Emerson, N.J.

It started off friendly enough then quickly became argumentative and before the first paragraph was completed this individual had written, "I am glad that your son got killed for he probably was an idiot just like you". My first reaction, and really the only reaction I have ever had, was sadness for an individual who is so consumed with anger that he felt it necessary to lash out at me for my beliefs.

That is exactly how I feel about John Kerry. His anger was in full bloom as he tried desperately to control the damage that his words had caused. He knew full well that he could not defend his remarks, so he attacked President Bush. In doing so he reinforced his now fully revealed condescending attitude towards our troops. He talked over them, as he always does, never even beginning to understand that there might be individuals who were truly and deeply offended by his remarks. The explanation for that is quite simple: He firmly and deeply believes that anyone who would be so stupid as to join the military is beneath the high moral perch on which he thinks he sits.

Even in his so-called apology the next day, Mr. Kerry could not bring himself to admit that he had made a mistake. It was not his fault that I might be offended; it is my fault because I "misinterpreted" what he said.

Over these past 3 1/2 years, whenever I have been asked to be interviewed or speak at a function, I purposely do not write anything down. I do not want my emotions to be confined by the words that I have practiced; rather, I want to share with the people I am speaking with the full range of emotions that I live with each day in order that they might understand me in human terms. On the day that he aggrieved so many individuals by his words, that is what Sen. Kerry was doing. He dropped the pretense and revealed to the world what was in is heart, to his never-ending detriment.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with our troops comes away with a sense of awe, attributable not just to their bravery and valor but to their intelligence and character. In one of the many conversations I had with Kyle, I reminded him that as he moved up the ladder in the military, he would have to be ever mindful that the caliber of the individual got better and better and that he would have to work harder and harder. Kyle did not want to go to college; he wanted to be a soldier. He joined and only had one demand and that was to be Infantry. He was airborne qualified and had orders to go to Ranger school, but the war in Iraq came first. I can still recall to this day the astonishment in his voice when he told me of his passing of the 82nd Airborne Pre-Ranger course and the incredible individuals he graduated with. Only four in 10 did so. Little did I know at the time that he was voted by those other graduates as Best Ranger.

Sen. Kerry has really picked on the wrong crowd this time. Not so much the individual soldiers he so clearly insulted, for they are great judges of true manhood, and in him they have found him wanting. When he ran for president, they voted against him by almost 4 to 1.

They will laugh him off, but their loved ones are a different matter. Kyle died with two of his buddies, Spc. Michael Gleason and Spc. Zachariah Long. Ironic in a way, for they came from Pennsylvania, the great state that has given us these two and so many other magnificent heroes--and Rep. John Murtha, who disparages their service just like Senator Kerry. Kyle and Zack were inseparable. They trained together; rode dirt bikes together; one taught the other how to milk a cow; they deployed together; they earned their Bronze Stars together in rescuing a compromised unit; and they died together at age 20, one asleep on the other's shoulder.

In their death and our sorrow, I have come to know and love Zach's mom Karen as Kyle did during those many days spent riding the dirt bikes on their farm in Pennsylvania and eating her out of house and home and probably a cow or two. On Wednesday I called Karen to ask what she thought of Sen. Kerry's remarks. I was shocked that she had no idea what I was talking about, for she hardly watches any news anymore. I read her the quote from Mr. Kerry and shut up as she digested and interpreted the words. She then simply said, "Shame on him for insulting my boy. He just called my boy stupid. Shame on him."

John Kerry can attempt to apologize in as many forms and as many times as has the breath but he can be assured that the pain that he has inflicted upon this wonderful woman will forever be part of the pain that she endures each day and in reality there was no reason for it to happen.

It is in my mind the height of irony that John Kerry, a Yale graduate, would make two other Yale graduates the butt of his supposed joke. One we all knew as President Bush; the other is known mostly to those who have proudly served with and under him. On the day Kyle died, this gallant warrior was to take command of Kyle's parent unit, the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. Kyle was on his way to the ceremony when he and his buddies were killed. Here is a man who is the epitome of intellect, character and gallantry--an individual that Mr. Kerry does not believe exists.

John Kerry stands alone, to be judged by his words. He has given us the rare opportunity to look into the soul of a politician, and he has shown himself wanting, especially in view of the fact that he asked us to allow him the honor and privilege of leading our gallant military at a time of war. It is rare in life to be able to know the consequences of both sides of a decision. Mr. Kerry has clearly demonstrated what manner of president he would have been. Fortunately the American electorate denied him that high honor.

Mr. Griffin is the father of Spc. Kyle Andrew Griffin, a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal and the Bronze Star, who was killed in a truck accident on a road between Mosul and Tikrit on May 30, 2003.

Ellie

jinelson

11-03-06, 07:37 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24144-John-Kerry_w.jpg

jinelson

11-03-06, 07:49 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24147-Nerd-Recruiting_w.jpg

jinelson

11-03-06, 07:51 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24146-Uncle-Einstein_w.jpg

thedrifter

11-03-06, 08:08 AM

John Kerry Is a Republican Mole

by Caspar Weinberger Jr.
Posted Nov 03, 2006

Well, there is no denying it now. I thought we might be able to hold the truth amongst ourselves for just a bit longer, but now we all know: Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) is a Republican mole in Democratic clothing! Thanks, Senator; all Republicans owe you a great debt of gratitude. Gratitude for firing up the Republican base just days before the mid-term elections.

For a while we all just wondered where the wave might come from that would put the Republicans back on the political map for this campaign in which it has appeared for so long that we have been so badly hurt. Perhaps, many of us thought, Osama bin Laden would suddenly be captured and brought here for trial. We waited for a miracle and on Monday it came in California, of course, home of our greatest Republican in modern times, the late great President Ronald Reagan.

Yes, there was John Kerry putting his foot as far down his mouth as any circus contortionist has ever dared to do. Did you notice the beautiful looking young lady behind him on the platform, representing one of several apparently Democratic youth? Look at her lovely smile and her sunny optimism turn to bewilderment as ole John shoves it to the American military once again. It certainly looks as if even she couldn’t stand to be there another moment.

Yep, our greatest mole once again slammed our armed forces as he did in 2001 with his now infamous Genghis Khan reference and then again last year calling the soldiers combatants against innocent men and women in Iraq. Now, of course, he has gone further and called anyone who serves his country to be a country bumpkin…stupid in a word. He calls it a “botched joke”. What would have been the correct joke? No, John Kerry is the joke and we Republicans must let out a hearty laugh at his fundamental stupidity and react with joy at the gift he has given us so late in the campaign.

How do I know the senator is a Republican mole? Well, of course, I don’t for a certainty. However, once in Logan Airport he had the decency to carry an old man’s luggage when he saw the man struggling down a Delta Airlines corridor. That old man was my father, the Honorable Caspar W. Weinberger, Reagan’s Defense secretary, long since retired by then, and Dad needed help, no doubt. He was always a man who wanted to pull his own weight. Kerry, I suppose, means well, yet his own words betray him, and as a major political figure, he should by now know a lot better than to say what he said in public and on the record.

But the truth is in this country you love, honor and respect the military or you don’t. Ronald Reagan loved the military and so did my father. They knew how important our brave young man and women are to preserving and protecting and defending this great country.

My father’s last book before his death at age 88 this past spring is titled “Home of the Brave” (Forge Press). Co-written with a great young freedom writer, Wynton Hall, “Home of The Brave” tells the story of 17 of our strongest soldiers, both men and women and the sacrifices and heroism they displayed in individual actions in the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book starts with a quote from President George H.W. Bush, which gives us the title. The elder Bush said, “America would not be the land of the free if it were not also the home of the brave.”

The American public knows immediately if you care for America and have a solid patriotism and love for the military. When you don’t, your words, no matters how unconscious or how “botched” give you away. They gave away President Bill Clinton years ago and they give away John Kerry once again today.

All we Republicans can do is thank this obvious mole for this service to the nation because his words have certainly made clear that you either know the light of the sun and the stars and salute the amazing work of our troops from the lowest ranked enlisted man to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in keeping this country strong and free and helping out the rest of the world that cries out to be free, or you just see the glass half empty and demand change by casting nothing but aspersions at those who protect even the houses of Clinton and Kerry themselves while they spit their vicious words about how stupid our troops are and how we are the moral wrong-doers.

When I spoke at the publisher’s party for my father’s book in May in New York, I mentioned the quote he had used from one of the great Afghanistan war heroes highlighted in his book, U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant William C. Markham. When asked how he feels when he hears critics of the War on Terror and those who oppose the sacrifices being made by America’s armed forces, Sgt. Markham says he feels no spite, quite the contrary: “I do what I do to keep this country free. So when I hear that kind of thing, it honestly makes me glad, because it means those individuals have the freedom to think and say what they wish.”

Thanks again, Sen. Kerry, for saying what you wished, even though you afterward you tried to protest too much like Lady Macbeth, because now it has made every thinking American realize the bankruptcy of you and the party you purport to represent.

Ellie

rktect3j

11-03-06, 08:08 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24146-Uncle-Einstein_w.jpg
My wife is a Phi Beta Kappa. Her GPA was actually about 4.1 though. She served in the Army.

drumcorpssnare

11-03-06, 08:09 AM

Scenario...May,2008 Mass.,USA Sen. Kerry's home 7:15 am

Action...Member of Islamic terror cell quietly breaks into Sen. Kerry's home, and points AK-47 at John.

Result...A.) Sen. Kerry throws pillow at terrorist, and runs.
B.) Sen. Kerry wets himself, and cries like a baby.
C.) Sen. Kerry shakes hand of terrorist. They have coffee.
D.) Sen. Kerry "wishes" some dumb soldier or Marine was there to
save his sorry ass.

You decide. They all seem to fit.:banana:

drumcorpssnare:usmc:

OLE SARG

11-03-06, 08:22 AM

I am like you, all these would fit ms kerry.
He is such a ****ing waste of human flesh!!!!!!!!!! The lurch looking MF needs to exterminate himself!!

SEMPER FI,

Ironrider

11-03-06, 08:28 AM

I read the mans' "apology" and I wasn't impressed. apparently I'm lacking in the brain power to realize that he misspoke and I misinterpreted what he meant, and was therefore insulted.

Sorry John..Apology not accepted...keep trying ya may get it right.:p

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 09:18 AM

If I was in Cuba in '62, I would have obeyed orders to fight. If I was in Vietnam, I would have obeyed orders to fight. (I did). If today I was in Iraq, I would obey orders to fight. Don't you feel the same 10th? It's called serving your country and the Corps.

If I wasn't John Kerry's dumb, not too bright (naive) at the time, I would of not of let myself get in a position defending Ngo Dinh Diem's corrupt regime in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><ST1:place>South Vietnam</ST1:place>, I would of been in college</st1:country-region>. As far as Cuba goes, if we did not first put our missiles in Russia’s back yard (Turkey) and later our botched "Bay of Pigs" invasion, which further drove Castro to get an Atomic deterrent to protect his Country from American aggression, just like Korea and Iran are doing today. After all, who is really going to fuk with you if you have an atomic bomb? Make any sense to you.

Simply put: There will always be a professional army in America, and if they need my help or my families because the North Vietnamese, Cuban's, Iraqi's, Iranian’s, North Koreans, or anyone else are coming to land troops on our coast's, then we all go into the Military to defend our coast.

I subscribe to only defending the 'Bill of Rights' and 'Our Coastline' not oil wells in the <ST1:place>Middle East</ST1:place>. The oil reserves in <st1:country-region><ST1:place>Canada</ST1:place></st1:country-region> are greater than the <ST1:place>Middle East</ST1:place>, and we do not have to fight for it, unless our oil companies can figure a way to start a war with <st1:country-region><ST1:place>Canada</ST1:place></st1:country-region>. I would not put it past them.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="60%" align=center><TBODY><TR><TD bgColor=#b0e2ff>I was a Gangster for Capitalism

by Major General Smedley Butler

November 1935

<HR><TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=8 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.doublestandards.org/smedleybutler.jpg

Major General Smedley Butler

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country's most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel that I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents. Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940) was at the time of his death the most decorated U.S. Marine in history. He was twice the recipient of the Medal of Honor, one of only nineteen to be so honored.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

SF
10th<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:p></O:p>

Ironrider

11-03-06, 09:24 AM

According to the Discovery Channel, the oil reserves in Canada are larger than the ENTIRE mid east. Unfortunatly, the tree-huggers prevent anyone from getting to it.:p

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 10:24 AM

According to the Discovery Channel, the oil reserves in Canada are larger than the ENTIRE mid east. Unfortunatly, the tree-huggers prevent anyone from getting to it.:p

Look what happened to Tampico, Mexico, China and Iraq http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/11.gif. Whats really nice about Canada it is close, they won't even have to drop their drawers or bend over, they'll never even know what hit them http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/04.gif

Camper51

11-03-06, 10:40 AM

rktect3j

11-03-06, 10:46 AM

[quote=10thzodiac]
I subscribe to only defending the 'Bill of Rights' and 'Our Coastline'
quote]

My, my, my, but wasn't 9/11 an attack upon our shoreline?? Maybe it was just an aberration, yeah that's it it was an aberration...

If we don't respond to fukn terrorists on THEIR soil they will certainly respond on OURS...
That was just a hit and run. 10th don't want to leave our shoreline. He's waiting for a full scale invasion. Then it will make sense to defend our country.

yellowwing

11-03-06, 03:05 PM

It still bugs me that the enemy in Afghanistan is funded by opium and we are leaving it up to the corrupt Afghan Govt to do something about it.

Record crop for Taliban's opium (http://torontosun.com/News/World/2006/11/03/2219823-sun.html)

The Taliban were the ones responsible for 9/11, and Rumsfeld ain't doing squat to cut off their cash crop. And Kerry ain't even bringing it up either!

Gary Treacher

11-03-06, 03:12 PM

Sounds like Mr Kerry went to the same school as our glorious politicians.

Hobson

11-03-06, 05:03 PM

****ing pathetic

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 07:45 PM

I subscribe to only defending the 'Bill of Rights' and 'Our Coastline'
quote]

[quote=Camper51]My, my, my, but wasn't 9/11 an attack upon our shoreline?? Maybe it was just an aberration, yeah that's it it was an aberration...

OUR NATION WAS ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH PROTECTING OUR COASTLINE

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="85%" align=center dwcopytype="CopyTableCell"><TBODY><TR align=left><TD>
Published on Thursday, December 18, 2003 by CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main589137.shtml)

</TD></TR><TR align=left><TD>
9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

</TD></TR><TR align=left><TD>


</TD></TR><TR><TD height=10></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top align=left><TD>
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.
"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."
<TABLE cellPadding=6 width=350 align=right border=0 hspace="5"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD align=right width=350 height=255>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/images/1218-01.jpg
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.
The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots.
"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said.
Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers. Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will." Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 08:08 PM

10th don't want to leave our shoreline. He's waiting for a full scale invasion[/b]. Then it will make sense to defend our country.

That's funny, "The Iraqis are coming, the Iraqis are coming !" http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/17.gif Full scale invasion !!! rktect3j, in case no one told you, the invasion is in 'Star Wars III' http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/18.gif

Personally, I'm more worried about the bird flu invasion myself http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/34.gif

Did you get your flu shot yet ?

SF
10th

greensideout

11-03-06, 08:09 PM

jinelson

11-03-06, 08:21 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24151-Recruiter-Kerry_w.jpg

jinelson

11-03-06, 08:24 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24182-Ivy-Covered-Halls_w.jpg

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 08:38 PM

Another CLASSIC MALCONTENT !!! These people must grow from sour soil.
They all have a finger to point but none have a constuctive contibution to solve problems, just a b**ch about others. If they were in the job---this and that, ya right! Everyone enjoys being the monday morning quarterback because it is the easy way to win the game. But the game of the day is over so their comments have little meaning.

In response to your post: Have you ever read General Smedley D. Butler's book, "War Is A Racket" ? He was in the job.

You can read it on line: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

SF
10th

jinelson

11-03-06, 08:59 PM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/24154-Geek-Squadron-Recruitments_w.jpg

Malcontents can't seem to read their scripts and let their true feelings blow out their pie holes!

greensideout

11-03-06, 09:09 PM

In response to your post: Have you ever read General Smedley D. Butler's book, "War Is A Racket" ? He was in the job.

You can read it on line: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

SF
10th

No, I have not read General Butler's book. You have provided a good overview of his comments however and I don't have a problem with what he says. Little if anything is the same as it was in his day so it is hard to apply to today's world, such as your ideas of only protecting the homeland at home. In my view, that will no longer work. I wish it would! We are in the New World Order now and must deal with it. Is war still a racket?---I guess we agree on that one.

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 09:29 PM

No, I have not read General Butler's book. You have provided a good overview of his comments however and I don't have a problem with what he says. Little if anything is the same as it was in his day so it is hard to apply to today's world, such as your ideas of only protecting the homeland at home. In my view, that will no longer work. I wish it would! We are in the New World Order now and must deal with it. Is war still a racket?---I guess we agree on that one.

The INTERNET version is a breeze 1 2 3 http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

SF
10th:thumbup:

SgtHopperUSMC

11-03-06, 10:05 PM

Carl Rossitto

11-03-06, 10:37 PM

Kerry has proven, finally,that he was not the man we would have wanted in the Oval Office. George may stumble around with his "speaking ability", but we all know that he can't help it. Kerry is supposed to be an educated man...well, so much for that education. Looks like even those without that collenge education have more class, and better understanding of how to not put people down, even with a "botched joke".
images/smilies/iwo.gif
Semper Fi!!!!

10thzodiac

11-03-06, 10:54 PM

I have read the book or at least the part in the link provided. Maybe we would have been better off. But do you believe that the rest of the world would have followed the example?

While we would be happy in the bubble, the world would go on by and drag us in anyway. We do not control the destiny of this world. It has been written long before we came along. We are born to make mistakes and do wrong in someones eyes. We will never be perfect in this world. The battle lines are drawn....Pick your side.

May the Lord bless you one and all. Semper Fi!

If you would like to know what Smedley's sons did in WW II, you'll have to read another INTERNET book about Smedley, "The Plot to Seize The White
House", where General Butler exposes a Fascist plot fermented in the American Legion asking General Butler to become the American Mussolini deposing President Roosevelt.

http://www.clubhousewreckards.com/plot/plottoseizethewhitehouse.htm

The book by Jules Archer, "The Plot to Seize The White House" is disappearing from circulation, a copy at Amazon can fetch as high as $800 http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0006COVHA/ref=dp_olp_2/104-2784230-9938336

SF
10th

jinelson

11-03-06, 11:14 PM

"The Plot to Seize The White
House", where General Butler exposes a Fascist plot fermented in the American Legion asking General Butler to become the American Mussolini deposing President Roosevelt.

If it had been written today unlike any of your other diatribes it would feature John Hanoi Kerry!

thedrifter

11-04-06, 06:15 AM

Undue disrespect
By John E. Carey
November 4, 2006

The morning after Sen. John Kerry slurred America's fighting men and women and all who serve, my wife and I attended a ceremony in Northern Virginia. Juxtaposed to Mr. Kerry explaining lamely that he was only attacking the commander in chief in wartime (apparently Mr. Kerry thinks it funny to make fun of the president's intelligence), we witnessed this: A U.S. Army colonel seated and waiting for the event. A second U.S. Army colonel came upon the scene and the two shook hands and then gleefully embraced.

This image of teamwork, camaraderie and loyalty so moved me that at the end of the ceremony we stopped to talk. Col. Ronald E. Smith, M.D., told me the other colonel was his son's godfather. These two have traveled some miles together in peace and war. And each has dedicated his life to the service of others. Twice. Both are medical doctors and also career U.S. Army officers.

These must be the people that Mr. Kerry thinks are stupid.

I stopped another young officer, a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. I noticed he wore the ribbons of the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart on his chest. The first is for valor. The second means he was wounded.

I asked him what happened.

"Some terrorist got lucky, sir," he explained. "Hit close to me with an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade). I'll set off airport metal detectors the rest of my life."

Indeed, the captain had many scars on one side of his face. "Oh, this whole side of my body looks like I got penetrated by a thousand pieces of metal," he said. "But I'll go back to Iraq. As soon as they'll let me."

He didn't seem stupid to me. He seemed honorable, dedicated, professional and proud. And eager to do more for his country.

I asked about his family.

"They understand my commitment. It is difficult. But it is what we were called to do," the Marine captain said to us.

He didn't want his name in the newspaper. He said, "There are plenty of people that are doing more than me. Why should I deserve special mention?"

I stopped a Navy captain who had with him his two small sons and his wife. His wife is obviously Chinese, and I noticed because I spent a few years living among the Chinese. And my bride is Vietnamese. I have a developed eye for Asian faces.

They thought Mr. Kerry's remarks didn't matter much. "Nobody should listen to politicians when they lose their cool in the heat of a political squabble. They stop thinking, generally," said the captain.

A one-star U.S. Army general passed us wearing the wings of a helicopter pilot. "We have a tremendous number of young uniformed men and women fighting, dying and otherwise making sacrifices or giving their all. I have the utmost respect for them. In fact, I love them all and their families, too."

His remarks did not sound practiced. These words were heartfelt.

There is a special breed of men and women in our country who dedicate their lives, their careers and their families to duty, honor and country. You can see their sterling character in the gleam in their eye when you ask them about their service.

On the way home from the ceremony my wife and I stopped at America's newest monument: the U.S. Air Force Memorial. Four Air Force Blackhawk helicopters passed over head, reminding us of the airmen all over the world who protect us and keep the peace.

A lieutenant colonel wearing the wings of a command pilot stopped us.

"I'd rather be in Iraq than here flying a desk at the Pentagon. But we all have our jobs to do. We all have our duty. I don't complain. But I do sneak up here from time to time to reflect upon all the airmen lost in our nation's wars," he said.

To reflect upon and thank them for their service and for giving the ultimate sacrifice, I thought.

Nothing stupid about this man. He seemed to have his life and his commitments in perfect order.

And I wish I could say the same about many of our politicians.

John E. Carey is a retired U.S. military officer and former president of International Defense Consultants, Inc.

10thzodiac

11-04-06, 07:54 AM

Bus driver fired for crude Bush gesture
--------------------

Items compiled from Tribune news services

November 3, 2006

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- A school bus driver fired after she reportedly made an obscene gesture at President Bush has filed a union grievance in an attempt to get her job back.

The 43-year-old driver, whose name was not released, was driving middle school children back to school after a zoo visit on June 16 when the president and GOP Rep. Dave Reichert drove slowly by in a motorcade.

From the bus, the children waved; with the windows down in their car, Bush and Reichert waved back.

That's when the driver gave the president the finger, according to Reichert and Issaquah superintendent Janet Barry.

10thzodiac

11-04-06, 07:58 AM

Dave Coup

11-04-06, 08:10 AM

From what I've read the Buss Driver wasn't fired for flipping off the President, but for making obscene gestures in front of the children on the bus.

I read the Smedley Butler book and he strikes me as NUT!

pak1956

11-04-06, 08:16 AM

This is my first time writing here. I'm not a Marine, but my dad was during WWII in the South Pacific. So, first of all, I would like to thank all of you for your diligent service... and for your intelligence and wisdom!!

I read the transcript of Kerry’s apology: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/01/america/web.1101kerrytext.php
where he blames the White House and the republicans for deliberately "distorting" his words.

"...My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops. The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything America, the raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches in which they have not told the American people the truth..."

How can "... if you don't study, you'll end up stuck in Iraq..." be distorted to mean anything other than what it says? If he meant to direct it at Bush, why is there no mention of Bush directly even prior to this comment? He was speaking to students and was directing it to students. His remark was a "stunning statement" about his disdain for the military... as are his past remarks dating all the way back to the 1970's!

But GRRRRRRRRR!! the thing that makes me even MORE angry... just look at his apology! Even in his apology he doesn't take responsibility for his own words, but instead blames it on Bush and the republicans! So what does that mean? Everyone who heard his remark is too stupid to understand and interpret the great intellect of John Kerry? And if he did mean to direct his remark towards Bush and not the military, then who is the stupid one here? He can't even read a joke correctly?

I think everyone agrees that, as in any war, mistakes have been and will be made, but does that justify running away? What would our country be now if during WWII my dad and everyone else in the military cut and run? This war in Iraq isn't only about Iraq. It's about terrorists who want to change our country and our way of life. And I am so thankful for the military and amazed that there exists men and women who have the selflessness and bravery to volunteer to protect me, my family, my friends, my country... and even John Kerry!

Well, I guess I haven't said anything that anyone else in this blog hasn't already said, but I just had to get it off my chest.

Paulie

PS If anyone's interested, here's more about Kerry: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/1/20/131219.shtml