Guest Author - Linda Sue Grimes

In October 2006, Senator John Kerry remarked that the soldiers fighting in Iraq were lazy, uneducated, and therefore got “stuck” in Iraq. Then Kerry claimed he was critiquing George Bush. A close analysis of Kerry’s so-called “botched joke” reveals this senator’s sloppy thought processes.

The Botched Joke
The first statement below presents the real “joke” as written in Senator John Kerry’s speech notes, which supposedly criticizes President Bush’s policy in Iraq. The second is a botched version of the first.

What Kerry was supposed to say:
1. "Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

What he actually said:
2. "You know education. If you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well, and if you don't you get stuck in Iraq."

Analysis of the “Joke”
The real “joke” makes no sense as criticism of Bush, even if one believes Bush mistakenly entered America into war. The senator’s audience is students of Pasadena City College, and he is addressing them: “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you’re intellectually lazy?”

Because he is addressing a college audience, it would seem that he was comparing today’s college student with President Bush as a lazy student, which is nonsense: Bush completed a BS degree in history at Yale and an MBA at Harvard; he served in the Texas Air National Guard, from which he was honorably discharged. But the claim that “if you don’t study, if you’re intellectually lazy” clearly refers to college students, not presidents.

The leap to “getting us stuck in Iraq” is absurd. We have nothing to fear from an intellectually lazy college student, but, of course, Kerry means to skip ahead several decades to when this intellectually lazy college student as president gets us stuck in Iraq. So does he mean that Bush was a lazy college student or is he lazy now because he got us stuck in Iraq? But remember he is addressing college students and his statement is “jokingly” prodding them to study and not be intellectually lazy. If he is referring to Bush as an intellectually lazy college student, what can be said of Kerry, whose grade point average at Yale was one point lower than Bush’s?

Bush – Intellectually Lazy yet Brilliant at Deceiving Democrats
Another problem with the “joke” is that the usual complaint is that Bush deliberately led us astray; he deliberately lied, covered-up, conspired to deceive the Democrats into voting to go into Iraq. That has been the message for two years. Such behavior would require skill, not easily accomplished by someone not doing homework or who is intellectually lazy. That kind of activity requires a lot of thought to put such deception into practice. On the one hand, the Democrats want to paint Bush as intellectually inferior, a dullard, while on the other hand they claim he misled them, deceived them. If they are so easily misled by a dolt, what must their level of intelligence be? Criminals, from rapists to serial killers to tax evaders, are anything but intellectually lazy; they do their homework diligently right up to time they get caught.

So the statement even if delivered correctly is patently absurd; yet he claims it was a joke. But how can it be a “joke” if he believes the statement? He surely, believes that Bush is a dumb, lazy jerk who got us stuck in Iraq, unlike the brilliant, silver-tongued junior senator from Massachusetts whose intellectual power would not have gotten us stuck in Iraq.

What Kerry Really Believes
What kind of mind turns the first statement into the second? A bumbling, deceitful mind. That Kerry obviously did not even realize he had insulted the soldiers of today’s military indicates that he still thinks an all-volunteer military must be “dominated by the underprivileged” as he wrote in 1972. This flub continues Kerry’s denigration of the military that began with his “Genghis Khan” speech in 1971; last year he said our military was terrorizing women and children in the night in Iraq.

His remark must have made sense to him or else he would have corrected himself immediately and then read the actual “joke.” But not only did he not correct himself immediately, he waited two days before offering his non-apology. His immediate response was to lash out as if he had, in fact, read the real “joke,” saying that the White House knew exactly what he meant. It did— only Kerry seemed to be in a daze about the meaning of his statement.

The Non-Apology
No doubt that if members of his own party had not begun to call for his apology, Kerry would have continued his “I apologize to no one for criticizing the Bush administration….”

But when the word “apologize” finally appeared, it appeared in rhetoric that implies that Kerry had said nothing for which he needed to apologize. And the fact that the following statement has been accepted by the media and other pundits demonstrates the lack of intellectual scrutiny that politicians actually receive. Kerry’s apology appeared only on his web site; he did not even have the courage of conviction to utter these words aloud:

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.

Supports of Kerry will read only the following: “I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American . . . “But this is couched in rhetoric that absolves the senator of any blame.

According to this “apology,” Kerry does not say he regrets belittling the service members, he “sincerely regret[s] that his words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative.” But those words we heard were not misinterpreted. He did not imply; he clearly stated that “if you don't [study hard], you get stuck in Iraq." And by saying he apologizes to those who were offended, he relieves himself of blame, because anyone at anytime can claim to be offended by any discourse, regardless of its intent or actual content.