Captain Ed, over at Captain's Quarters, citing several sources (links there), reports that former Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry (a/k/a Thurston Howell, III), had this to say at a Democratic campaign rally yesterday in Pasadena, California, at Pasadena City College:
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.
Did he really say that ? Captain Ed provides links: an audio clip here (John Ziegler's KFI 64o AM radio show -- clip from the 30 Oct. program), and another here (Allahpundit on Hot Air).
I know Mr. Kerry's what passes for old-line aristocracy in Massachusetts, and is, to a degree product of a culture that has sometimes defined itself in opposition to the military, or pro-military values, but damn, is his attiude showing or what ? "Study hard, or wind up a chump toting a rifle in the military." Yes, folks the Left supports the troops, even if they think they're idiots for joining up.
3 comments:
First off, he didn't say US troops are "idiots for joining up." You did.
Second, I believe a lot of the infantry troops are there because they didn't do better in high school. And recruiting standards are being lowered to make room for them.
Thanks for taking my mind off the 3,000 US troops killed in Iraq, Afghanistan's booming opium trade, ooss of habius corpus and Americans torturing prisioners.
Thought I forgot, didn't you?
I don't know what you think I forgot, but if you really think Senator Kerry didn’t call our
soldiers in Iraq idiots, (as distinguished from looking for a rhetorical point), you are either deaf or can't read.
When has there not been a booming opium trade in Afghanistan ? Under the Taliban maybe ? Oh they were certainly a vast improvement. . .NOT.
Who has lost access to habeas corpus ? POW's are not entitled to the Great Writ, but they have rights under the applicable conventions. Foreign nationals who are not soldiers or any other kind of recognized military force, and so do not even qualify as POW's -- are certainly not entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, either.
You people throw out the "Americans torturing prisioners [sic]” canard like confetti. So sorry, that won't wash. US personnel who have violated the field service regulations are being prosecuted. As for the piratical scum at Guantanamo, who fire at our soldiers from under no flag; wear no uniform; who are responsible to no government; who would cheerfully burn you, me and everyone we know alive and laugh about it – they are getting a good deal more due process than they deserve, for they are entitled to none whatever.
Turning from the killers to the dead, I am happy for you that your mind can be off our 3,000 dead in Iraq. I wish mine could. I am only too proud that I supported, and support the liberation of Iraq, but I have not for a minute forgotten what it has cost, and may cost. But that said, I completely reject your implicit premise that the 3,000 US deaths in Iraq have not been for something valuable; or that the invasion of Iraq was not undertaken for a worthwhile purpose.
Finally, as you have questioned my morality, I question yours: I wonder about the morality of people who would try to invoke the fact of these 3,000 deaths to promote policies which would result in the abandonment of the cause for which they died, the deaths of thousands more Iraqis, and the collapse of the US strategic position in one of the most important regions of this world. I’m only too glad that I disagree with your comment completely.
Lots more controversy the days after now in regards to Kerry's comments. If it truly was a misstatement, he could have remedied it immediately, and it would have been nothing but an outtake for late night talk show fodder. Now, it is taking a life of its own.
As for the statement itself, I take great issue with its premise. I know that the men and women serving in our forces are some of the best we have, and I am proud that they are out there fighting for us so that we, sitting in our comfortable homes and reading the news on our laptops, don't have to do it ourselves.
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