Well, John Kerry — who normally can’t be pried away from TV cameras without crowbars, blasting caps, and wild horses — issued his apology earlier tonight through his web site.
Statement of Senator John Kerry
As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.
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.
It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.
So, Kerry says he’s sorry. Sorry about what?
“I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform…”
Typically, it isn’t Kerry’s fault. It’s our fault for being so dumb and clueless to misunderstand his words. He made a “verbal slip,” but that takes second billing to those words were “misinterpreted.” And he wraps up by insisting that it’s time for everyone to drop the matter.
That’s not an apology, that’s weaseling.
Earlier today, I stuck up (sort of) for Kerry, saying that I believed it was a “verbal slip,” a dropped word or two that changed the target of his derision from Bush to the troops themselves. I still think it’s that way. Kerry has slammed the troops for 35 years.
But if you look at those quotes, the third one really stands out. In the first two, Kerry is denigrating and denouncing the troops’ conduct. In the third, it’s aimed at them personally — and as loathesome and inept as Kerry is, that’s a little over the line, even for him.
Kerry is an ass. He is a pompous, narcissistic, fraudulent gigolo who’s done exactly one worthwhile thing in the last 35 years. On the other hand, he’s managed to marry not one, but two extremely wealthy women and parlay their wealth into a hightly successful political career.
I have very little respect for John Kerry. I will put my ability to take cheap shots at him against most anyone (with the exception of Howie Carr).
But there’s an old saying: “When you strike against a king, be sure to kill him.”
What Kerry said on Monday wasn’t a huge insight into his character. It was, if anything, a glimpse into his human side — the side that gets tired, that makes mistakes.
The real John Kerrey was revealed in the way he handled the consequences of that mistake. It reaffirmed his vanity, his narcissism, and his utter unsuitability for holding high office.
Once again, I am horrified that this man came that close to being elected president of the United States.
Now any apologies from the bloggers who spread the mis-information and out of context message of Kerry’s original statement?
Seriously why wouldn’t you all owe Kerry an apology for spreading around false claims about the intent of what he said?
Look, as one who has been following Kerry for a very long time, since back when he was Lt. Governor of Mass, Kerry is simply mentally ill. He has extreme (narcissistic) personality disorder.
Again, he is simply mentally ill. Nothing more. Nothing less.
To try to go beyond with other explanations is useless and/or meaningless.
“[Kerry has] done exactly one worthwhile thing in the last 35 years.”
Remind me again what that was.
And to expect more of an “apology” is useless and/or meaningless.
What’s amazing is that someone so mentally ill can get so far within the Democratic Party, but then again, maybe that’s what it takes (mental illness).
Hey muirgeo, I saw bloggers spreading the video of Kerry and his own words. Does that need an apology?
Furthermore, what he said is so “in context” with his history of criticizing our troops, it seemed to be a pretty natural extension of the Kerry position.
For what, muirgeo? For taking Kerry at his word?
I’ve known that’s a foolish thing to do for years, but I have an advantage — I live in the state next door. Others don’t have that going for them.
George, I’ve said all along: Kerry has one single accomplishment as a Senator that is, indisputably, praiseworthy and decent and honorable. For now, though, I’ll see if any of those who defend Kerry, who supported and voted for him in 2004, can actually cite it on their own.
J.
Didn’t this man say he was NOT going to apologize for his remarks? The waffler strikes again…
muirgeo: “Seriously why wouldn’t you all owe Kerry an apology for spreading around false claims about the intent of what he said?”
muirgeo, with all “due” respect…WTF???
For re-playing what he ACTUALLY SAID we owe him an apology???
no one “parsed” his words…and the FULL CONTEXT of them was provided with each replaying of them.
We owe him an apology because we’re don’t accept his 48 hours late “interpretation” of what he MEANT to say?
again…WTF???
(R-Oh) Boehner blames troops for failures in Iraq, not Bush or Rumsfeld.
On today’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, Boehner and host Wolf Blitzer had the following exchange:
Boehner: …[L]et’s not blame what’s happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.
Blitzer: But he’s in charge of the military.
Boehner: But the fact is the generals on the ground are in charge and he works closely with them and the president.
I’m pretty sure Jay Tea’s high school yearbook featured him as “Biggest Drama Queen.” I wonder if he is beet red and 3-way calling the rest of Wizbang’s lying writers about his anger.
Pure drivel.
Sorry over the much ado about nothing remark about the troops.
But not sorry about calling wingnuts for what they are -Wussies.
Thats fair.
Jay, you bastard, you have KILLED this thread with by hurling down this guanlet:
“Kerry has one single accomplishment as a Senator…can [anyone]actually cite it on their own.”
[crickets chirping]
My guess is that it involves Tereza and a ketchup bottle…but that is PURE speculation!!!
It is telling that no one here, not even the liberal Kool-Aid drinkers, can think of a single praiseworthy thing that John Kerry has done after a lifetime of public “service”.
His “apology” is a bunch of BS, like everything else he spews. He is repugnant and worthless, which makes him the perfect poster boy for the Democratic Party. After this episode, I am definitely voting Republican across the board, even though I belong to neither party.
“As a combat veteran…”
That’s not how any apology i’ve ever heard started out….
Is he apologizing or bragging again???
and Justrand hit the nail on the head again. You liberals ought to listen to Justrand and pay attention – or you could find yourself stuck in Iraq…. oh, but wait. MOST of the troops are REPUBLICAN!!! I wonder why that is???
Just like Kerry, you liberals haven’t a clue. Dumb as a box of bricks.
John effin Kerry’s biggest accomplishments of his life:
1. Picking his birth parents
2. Marriage
…….and another thing.
AN APOLOGY FROM HIS WEBSITE????????????
WOW!! THAT’S GOTTA BE SINCERE. Gimme us a break you jelly-boned baffoons by telling the truth like a REAL MAN and stop hiding behind the words of a speechwriter behind a computer monitor….
THAT was NO apology.
NIce hat, Jay.
I too thought it rather odd that he called a news conference to say he wasn’t going to apologize and when he did apologize, he put it on his website. No press conference. A real man/person would take his medicine and do it in public. It’s really quite obvious he was forced to do so, and the apology was about as sincere as my belief in the tooth fairy. I would love to have been a fly on that cell phone.
2nd of November
I listened to the panel discussing Kerry, his motivations etc.
I am amazed at the ability to see things that aren’t there. Kerry has been amazingly constant behavior and his beliefs for 30 years. He has spelled them out in no uncertain terms and when questioned has always attacked his enemies. A Senator I much respected once said (circa 2004) that Kerry never had a friend in the Senate and 2004 was singular in that almost no one came to his aid with endorsements. This guy said that however much he differed with Kennedy, at least if Kennedy agreed to something he would never double cross the other person.
Kerry is just not bright and no amount of pontificating can alter this fact. Nothing in his educational background would sustain this and Bush by comparison has pretty good credentials and he qualified to fly a jet. Nobody that is a fool could fly one of them. While Kerry could hide behind a lieutenant governor’s job or a do nothing senator, he could be portrayed as something he was not. When he got out into the public, he never realized, and still doesn’t know his limitations. In the ordinary course of life he would have been taught :” a lessor two, but he never was brought up short”.
He is dense and his true nature came out when he gave vent to his suppressed venom. It is nor anything more complicated than that.
Over and out
I’m surprised Teresa hasn’t kicked Kerry out on his butt yet…. His lack of intellectual acuity and his mental numbness verifies a total incompetence of understanding of anything of consequence and gives her every right to do so. He is a lower life form than even the spod, totally inept in every manner of humanity and lacks ANY and ALL tools to even provide for his well being to survive on his own.
He truely is lucky she hasn’t booted him out…. yet.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that he is also repugnant.
A VERY SICK, SICK man….
steak111111: “Sorry, I forgot to mention that he is also repugnant.”
Hwo do you REALLY feel??? 🙂
He said he wouldn’t before
He Did, and didn’t say more.
I still can’t say what
He did that’s good but
I bet he didn’t boink Gore.
Muirego, I see you disappeared and that is a blessing however if you are sliming around somewhere, I want to ask you what you think Kerry was talking about and why you think that? Let us examine the situation. He was in Pasadena, speaking to students to campaign for Phil Angelides. Phil is about to lose an election to Arnold Schwarzemeger, not George Bush. Kerry stated he was there to talk about education. That if you did the work and acted smart you could get somewhere, if not you would get stuck in Iraq. Now how on this earth do you tie that into some joke about President Bush? You are stupid, why is it you are not stuck in Iraq? Fuck off dude.
I’d like to answer Smartguy, who asked the question…
“It is telling that no one here, not even the liberal Kool-Aid drinkers, can think of a single praiseworthy thing that John Kerry has done after a lifetime of public “service”.
I heard a Vietnam era age person speak on the radio today.
He said that around the time he had just been classified 1A, Kerry was back and testifying before congress. The person telling this story was waiting for his draft number to come up, and to be shipped out.
Before he was ordered to report, the war wound down, draft stopped.
He felt that Kerry, and people like Kerry had been influential in chainging public opinion about the failed policy in Vietnam.
His belief was that not only had Kerry and others like him possibly saved his life, but many, many others like him.
So, you asked…. This guy was around at the time. Discount him if you like, but he was there.
John
Zelsdorf,
Amigo… Do you parents know you’re on the internet again?
Jesus
Leave it to the Republican’ts to take this issue and run it too far. Kerry apologized, way later than he should have. So did Rush Limpbaugh only Rush’s apology is admittedly satirical.
Sponsor link – No offense intended to the pork sausage industry.
Don’t you guys have anything else to say to the American voters this close to the election?
Don’t get caught up in the emotional screaming of the television campaign advertising. They’re playing you guys like string violins. Big money is making you gnash your teeth while you sleep. Take a deep breathe. Relax.
You guys watch too much television. Pick up a book, newspaper, or magazine and understand the issues behind the politics, if you dare. Get informed.
I feel pretty informed, and am enjoying this little vacation from the usual prattle pre-election. I already mailed in my vote a week ago.
Kerry ain’t running for anything right now, though he sure seems to be running FROM something at this point…
The one good thing? The Savings and Loan fiasco investigation, two decades ago. Since then? Bupkis. Nada. Zip. Nichevo.
It’s not as if Republicans don’t say really stupid things once in a while.
Or struggle with HTML occasionally either.
Take 2.
Meanwhile back in sands of Iraq, a Muslim cleric just TOLD the Iraq Prime Minister that he WILL command the US Military to abandon all road blocks and check points around Sadar (sp) City and guess what, we did. Yes the same Sadar City that we believe our recently abducted US service man is being held captive. What did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have to say about these recent developments? He had no idea what the reporters were talking about.
Remember when conservatives were screaming that there is no way the US military would serve under the UN blue helmets? Well guess what, they now take orders from a radical muslim cleric. Way to stay the course Bush administration.
I know you guys will want links to prove my story is true but you know what, you can do “the google” yourself. I’m too pissed off and to tired to do the work for you. Sleep well tonight wingnuts.
That’s close enough, Mike G, and no one else seems interested in actually discussing Kerry’s record in the Senate.
Back in 1991, Kerry was one of two senators who led the investigation into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the bank that was the favorite of terrorists, dictators, and drug traffickers. BCCI had recruited several high government officials and given quite generously to a lot of lawmakers, and Kerry (along with Senator Hank Brown, R-CO) produced a report that led to the indictments of several very powerful figures.
Kerry bucked some rather hefty pressure from leading Democrats to go after BCCI (among the BCCI-linked figures were Clark Clifford, Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defense; Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and lawyer/businessman Robert A. Altman (not the filmmaker, but Lynda Carter’s husband).
That’s the ONE thing I think worthwhile to come out of his 22 years in the Senate.
J.
Kerry has NOT “slammed the troops for 35 years.”
You are using a dishonest quote in order to pretend that what Kerry said in 1971 was an accusation. It was not an accusation, Kerry was just relating the testimony of soldiers. He was reporting what the soldiers said, and not making an accusation against them. Kerry was quoting them, not accusing them. THEY told the stories in THEIR testimonies:
“… over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans
testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia … men who were reliving their
experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this
country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut
off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of
Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and
generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the
normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which
is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”
You guys start your quote by omitting all that comes before Kerry says “they had personally raped, cut …”
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) displayed INCREADIBLY honesty when he admitted: “It’s pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage. … A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.”
The game Republicans play with the 1971 statements is just one example. Think about what Dick Armey, a Republican from Texas, admitted to. Think about it.
Except, of course, the “vets” who had related this had never been to Vietnam, and most had never even been in service. This was the real scandal of the “winter soldier hearings.”
Of course, if you weren’t an idiot, you would know that already.
that isn’t true Jim. In fact:
U.S. military records that were classified for decades but are now available in the National Archives back Kerry up and put the lie to his critics.” – Nicholas Turse, “From the National Archives: New proof of Vietnam War atrocities”
Yes, Tom, Kerry quoted others. But he also said he had PERSONALLY taken part in what he dubbed “atrocities,” and before going in front of Congress and testifying under oath had not taken a single step towards confirming their stories — or even that they were really Viet Nam veterans. He used HIS credibility to sell THEIR lies.
J.
Hey Tom Murphy-you’re using way too many big words. Let me try and translate for you so all the dull-witted non-leftists will understand you: American troops are evil baby killers-they said so themselves.Vote Democratic so we can make sure those damn muderers get what’s coming to them!
Did atrocities occure in VietNam? Of course they did! Give a couple of hundred thousand young men guns, and some of them are going to commit atrocities. Just look at many of our iner cities across the country. But, that isn’t the point. The point is that you don’t stand up in public and critisize the entire military for the acts of a few criminals, especially in the time of war. Kerry did so for political purposes, and that is beneath contempt.
I understand that many people don’t like war, and think we should not have gotten into this one. However, we are in it and the best course is to win it. I don’t realy care whether the Iraqis manage to form a democratic government or not. In fact I rather doubt that they are capable of doing so. What I do believe is that by remaining in Iraq we are taking the war to the Islamic extremist, and reducing the likelyhood that they will hit us again in the US. My son is 3rdID, which is getting ready to redeploy, so I have a stake in the matter. The death of everyone of our soldiers is trajic, but most of the country will forget them the minute it is over, just like they did the guys from VietNam and Korea. Only the families will remember. That being said, counting bodies is a lousy way to judge how you are doing in a war. If it was, we should consider this to be the best one we ever fought.
One more word about Kerry. I’m tired of hearing how we should honor his service in VieNam. If we can believe the men he served with (and I do), he demonstrated cowardice in the fact of the enemy and cause self inflicted wounds to enable him to leave VietNam early.
THIS IS NOT HONORABLE SERVICE!
P.S. If anyone is interested in reading about real HEROS, check this site.
http://www.popasmoke.com/stories/pless_crew.html
Sorry, don’t know how to link it.
Looks like it did it all by it’s lonesome.
I did not realize how inadequate most of the American public can be when it comes to left wing political speech.
Maybe his ketchup queen should hire a couple of interpreters to accompany her prince to convert his nuancing to plain ole common people speak.
The apology was empty, as is his character. He still can not accept responsibility for his actions and statements.
Exactly right USMC Pilot,
except, shall we say, the question of “Honored by whom?”
Somewhere in Vietnam, in a little museum dedicated to honoring the memory of those who brought about the historic Ho Chi Minh victory, are the pictures of a very select few Americans.
One of them is Jane Fonda, another is John Kerry.
And while his status as US war hero is in great doubt, nothing has yet tarnished his standing in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
And to have achieved this with lies, repeated lies, sanitized lies, and negotiating with the enemy, privately – as a standing officer in the Navy – is true service indeed.
It is also the reason his full military records have not been released, and will not be.
Did you all forget the one honorable thing Kerry really did? He breathed life back into his daughters’ dead hamster! I can’t believe nobody got that.
In true flip-flop style:
John Kerry was against an apology, before he was for it.
“Did atrocities occur in VietNam? Of course they did!” – USMC Pilot
USMC Pilot, you are now admitting what others here deny. Will they attack you? Others, including Jay, call what you admit happened “lies.” Is that OK with you? You try to make some other point while ignoring the fact that others here are deniers of what you admit were atrocities.
And what is the problem with Kerry recalling the testimony of over 150 honorably discharged vets? He DID NOT say “the entire military” as you claim. In fact, if someone giving the misimpression that it was the “the entire military” makes you angry then you should be angry at all those that misquote Kerry because they are the ones that omit the words “at times” and give a false impression.
Guys, the Republicans are playing an ugly game, they don’t care if they hurt the troops by making them think a politician is mocking them when he was not. The Republicans are using the troops as a prop in their efforts to gain political ground for the election. It is shameless.
Let’s not skip past the fact that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) admitted the truth: the Rebublicans are playing a dishonest game with Kerry’s words: “It’s pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage. … A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.“
Don’t you guys have anything else to say to the American voters this close to the election?
Sure…no attacks on US soil since 9/11. Great economy, unemployment is almost nil, interest rates down and steady, gas prices down, peyton manning’s stats are better than tom brady’s.
isn’t america great?
To paraphrase Dick Cheney:
John Kerry was for the joke, before he became the joke (again).
Are you referring to when Dick Durbin(D-IL) compared the troops to Nazis ?
Are perhaps you referring to when John Kerry (D-MA) stated the the troops were ‘going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women’ ?
Are perhaps you’re referring to when Jack Murtha (D-PA) publicly announced that troops were ‘cold blooded murders’ before any investigation had been completed ?
It tells you something about the weakness in the Dim. Party that they had one of the weakest people in history running for Pres. on their ticket.
He is just a horrid person.