peacefinder's Journal: To Mr. Kerry's Speechwriter

Suggested remarks by Mr. Kerry:

"I made a statement last week that caused great offense. Many military people were offended by my statement that people had better get an education or they'd get shipped to Iraq. They were right to be offended by the implication that the military consists mostly of uneducated people. I am sorry. That is not what I meant to imply. That implication is simply not true anymore and hasn't been true for many years. I spoke thoughtlessly, and I did not mean to insult the military. I did mean to point out the foolishness of this administration's policies, and I don't apologize for that. I'll come back to that later.

"Some of you will not believe the sincerity of this apology. To you, I say that I spoke from my own experience in the military, which is of course decades out of date. The habits of youth can be hard to shake, and I am sorry for having spoken thoughtlessly.

"Back then, what I said would have been true. At that time, many of those in the military with higher educations were volunteers, like myself. During the Vietnam war the military had many draftees, and those draftees were disproportionately from among the poorest and least educated segments of our society. Those pursuing higher education were allowed to defer or avoid the draft. As we all know, many members of the administration took advantage of their wealth and influence to avoid combat, or even avoid military service of any kind.

"Of course, we haven't had a draft for many years, and the military has changed dramatically because of that. Since the institution of an all-volunteer military the services have become more selective, and have offered substantial educational benefits to many volunteers. Indeed, many have joined the military as a way to pay for higher education because they could not afford it otherwise. Over the years, this has resulted in a military which is even more educated than the general population, and I think all Americans can take some pride in that.

"But that's today. It wasn't true thirty-five to forty years ago when I served. And if this administration continues its reckless foreign policy, it may not be true in the future either.

"We have already seen that our military forces are being stretched thinner than we'd like, and there's talk of deploying even more troops to Iraq. And then there's the Korean problem to consider. In addition, some services are not meeting their recruiting goals.

"Will this administration continue in its recklessness to the point where we will need to reinstate the draft?"

You can take it from there.

(Unless you're the guy who put those idiotic words in his mouth to start with. If so, then do us all a favor and STFU.)

Even without this administration

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It is my belief that we will have to reinstate the draft. Here's why. Even without Bush's bumbling, we've got 100 years of raping the Holy Peninsula for oil and spreading raidos and TV sets among the Bedoin. This has created a reformation in Islam- one which threatens the old dream of One God, One Religion, One World, One Government, One Justice that is the cornerstone of Islam. That reformation is easily as violent as anything the Christians came up with between 1450 and 1800. It has become a World Wa

Kerry won't apologize

[Timex]

He's too full of himself to bother. I've heard his reaction to the blanket calls for him to apologize to our men and women in uniform, and he's already said he won't apologize, and that it's "just another example of Bush and the Republicans trying to change the subject". Example, my @$$.

Kerry's best bet right now is to shut his pie hole, unless he's thought about what he is going to say. Since that isn't going to happen any time soon, watch out for "more of the same".

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

Ummm, he did apologize. [nytimes.com]

And, he is shutting his pie-hole. [boston.com]

I also happen to agree that some Republicans are indeed trying to use this to change the subject. Then again, with the meltdown the Republican Party has been having of late, I can't say I blame them. :-P

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:

[Timex]

Says John Kerry ( FTA [nytimes.com]):

"As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loves ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop," Mr. Kerry said in a statement. "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."

Given his history, I think the only thing he "regrets" is that he got

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

So...ahh...where's your opprobrium for when Bush says colossally stupid statements [about.com]? C'mon.

(Hey, you wanna change the subject, so can I.)

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:

[Timex]

where's your opprobrium for when Bush says colossally stupid statements?

This is why you're His Imperial Majesty, and I'm not. "Opprobium"?

From the dictionary:

opprobrium /probrim/ -noun
1. the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy.
2. a cause or object of such disgrace or reproach.

Ah.

Everyone already knows Bush is an idiot. We knew this back in 2001. I thought the smartest move he made when he took office was in surrounding himself with people that (in t

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

This is why you're His Imperial Majesty, and I'm not. "Opprobium"?

Exactly. I will crush all opposition with my thesaurus.

Everyone already knows Bush is an idiot. We knew this back in 2001.

Eeesh. Then what was Gore? Chopped liver?

I thought the smartest move he made when he took office was in surrounding himself with people that (in theory) actually knew what they were doing.

Ouch. Hindsight's a bitch. 'Specially when ye didn't even vote for the twat. :-P

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:

[Timex]

Eeesh. Then what was Gore? Chopped liver?

Gore slipped off the edge of "Sane" several decades ago, when he was "inventing the Internet".

I can't find the story online, but back in the early 1990s (winter of 1990-1991?) Gore gave a quick glimpse of just how bright he is. He was in Augusta, Maine after an ice storm went through the North East. Maine was hit pretty hard. A lot of people lost power for several days.[1] Gore was there as a PR move (as politicians are prone to do), and as a photo-op, he had gra

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

Gore slipped off the edge of "Sane" several decades ago, when he was "inventing the Internet".

*sigh* [interesting-people.org]

I can't find the story online, but back in the early 1990s (winter of 1990-1991?) Gore gave a quick glimpse of just how bright he is. He was in Augusta, Maine after an ice storm went through the North East. Maine was hit pretty hard. A lot of people lost power for several days.[1] Gore was there as a PR move (as politicians are prone to do), and as a photo-op, he had grabbed a downed power line.

There

Re:

[Timex]

From the article:

[Gore] said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the
initiative in creating the Internet."

*You* know that Gore didn't do it. *I* know Gore didn't do it. Any Geek worth their keyboard knows that the Internet was (and remains) a corroborative work. The way Gore said this makes it seem as though he were solely responsible. At best, he sat in Washington casting votes about funding it.

Thing is, the supposedly biased librul media rarely reported on that.

Interestingly, the n

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

*You* know that Gore didn't do it. *I* know Gore didn't do it. Any Geek worth their keyboard knows that the Internet was (and remains) a corroborative work.

*shrug* Vinton Cerf says that Gore was right. That's good enough for me.

This is your opinion to have.

I have no 'opinion', you impertinent mortal fool. I have 'that which you are required to believe'.

W00t! Vote Ethelred/Dragon in 2006! (Well... I know you're running in 2008, but hey-- why wait?)

Now that's more like it.

As a matter of fact

No

[Stargoat]

He shouldn't apologize. When the lines around the quote are read, his meaning is clear. The quote has been entirely taken out of context and is being used by the lying Republican party.

The GOP has really grown brazen. What I don't get is that the American people do not bother to find out what a group of liars the GOP has become.