No doubt about it. John Kerry is a bumblefuck blowhard. And it pains me to defend him. So I won’t. I believe him when he says he misspoke. But he should have left it at that. Instead, he picked a stupid fight at a stupid time over an issue where he clearly made a mistake. This all could have blown over. He made this an issue, an dhe seems hellbent on letting his ego blow another election for the Democrats. Which wouldn’t bother me in the least, except that it means I have to endure another two years of the Republicans.

That said, the righteous indignation from the right this afternoon is tedious. It’s also obviously manufactured, and transparent. A few observations:

1) Honestly, who’s doing more harm to the troops right now, John Kerry, who muffed a joke intended to poke fun at the president, or the actual president and his party, who’ve made U.S. trops target practice for jihadists while engaging in a foolish, futile war that they’re too politcally cowardly to extricate us from? Hint: October was the bloodiest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in three years. Another hint: The GOP still says “we’re winning.”

2) I know it’s obvious, but it ought to be said. John Kerry isn’t Jim Webb. He isn’t Claire McCaskill. He isn’t Jon Tester. For the Sean Hannities of the world to say that you ought to vote for George Allen because of something John Kerry said is like saying you should vote for Jim Webb because Conrad Burns disparaged firefighters. It’s about the stupidest faux campaign outrage since…

well…

….since last week, unfortunately.

3) This continuing pattern of pundits and politicos with no combat experience — indeed, some who used power and privilege to avoid military service — chastising opponents who actually served as being anti-military, unpatriotic, and/or soft on national security is really beyond contempt. It’s shameless.

4) Yes, Kerry’s an idiot. But no, he doesn’t think the U.S. military is stupid. A little Occam’s Razor here, gang. That said, here’s hoping the Dems “Lamont” his ass the next time he’s up for reelection.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 10:26 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.