The Irony-Challenged Wingnutz

“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.” - Senator John Kerry

Wingnuts are wetting themselves over John Kerry's botching of his joke yesterday (he left out the word "us"; the videos you see fail to show it was a series of jokes about the miserable failure in chief). “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." (Kerry Press Release)

From the Honorable Max Cleland:

John Kerry should apologize to no one for his criticism of the President and his broken policy in Iraq. George Bush is the one who owes our troops an apology. This is text book Republican campaign tactics.

Everybody knows it's not working this time around. 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've got a partisan political agenda and that's the bottom line. We're not going to take it any more.

The local contemporaneous coverage tells us that Kerry,

charmed the crowd with tales of surfing at Mission Beach and got laughs for a series of one liners, including telling the crowd he had just returned from Texas, "Where the president used to live - now he lives in a state of denial." Kerry then told the students that if they were able to navigate the education system, they could get comfortable jobs - "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq"

The wingnutz frenzy is more than a little ironic, given the President's ability to botch everything he says.

But it works to distract people, even if only for a moment, from the miserable failure that is this Administration, that is this senseless invasion of Iraq.

Here's the transcript of his statement and the press conference.

Oh, you wanted botched and stupid? Here:

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000(Listen to audio clip)

"I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." —second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004 (Listen to audio clip)

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." —Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)

"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Listen to audio clip)

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)

"They misunderestimated me." —Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)

Or, were you looking for inappropriate humor about sending boys and girls off to die? Well, how about this: