Jon Tester: "Senator Kerry's remarks were poorly worded and just plain stupid. He owes out troops and their families an apology."
Jim Webb: "If that's John Kerry's idea of a joke he needs to work on his punch line. But at the same time this administration has to accept the realities of failed strategic policy." Webb added that there are "really, really fine and educated people in the United States military," including his son.
Hillary Clinton: "We don't need to be reciting the 2004 election, as much as President Bush would like that to happen. This election is about him and his policies. What Senator Kerry said was inappropriate."
Sherrod Brown: "The people who should apologize are George Bush and Mike DeWine for sending our troops into battle without body armor and without examining the cooked intelligence."
And finally...
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.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 [was] never intended to refer to any troop.
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.
OK, now that THAT is over with, can we get back to talking about the REAL issues facing this country now? Like what we're going to DO about Iraq at this point? Like embryonic stem cell research, economic/tax policies that favor the ultra-rich and major corporations, the huge budget deficits, the future of Social Security, the outsourcing of American jobs, the 45 million Americans without health insurance, global warming, education, national competitiveness, etc., etc. On all those issues, the Republicans lose. Big time. Which is why they're wasting our time talking about a guy who's not on the ballot this year.
Speaking of guys who ARE on the ballot this year, can we get back to talking about George Allen's pathetic record in the Senate the past six years? His 97% lockstep, rubberstamp support of George W. Bush? His crude and coarse remarks towards a young, Indian-American, Webb staffer? His continued pattern of racial insensitivity? His lack of any positive, affirmative vision for Virginia or the nation? He slandering and sliming of a great American's Vietnam War novels, not to mention the U.S. Marines who think so highly of at least one Webb book that they make it required reading? His staff's thuggish behavior towards a citizen of Virginia - NOT, by the way, a Webb staffer or even volunteer - asking him a question?
In other words, there's plenty to talk about; the question is, why are the Republicans so eager to avoid doing so? Gee, I can't imagine why! Ha.
Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.
Thanks for the clear and concise post, Lowell.
That is what has been driving me crazy about this damn thing is that people have been all over the place (either defending him, half defending him half condemning, so on and so on)
That just feeds the debate and keeps it on the headlines.
My god if I ever have to look at John Kerry again . . . I thought I was going to have a panic attack: Bush is even wearing the same shirt as he was in 04!
Bush and Allen have both been avoiding the War these last few days, Kerry tripped that strategy. Virginians don't like the war and nobody speaks more authoritatively than James Webb.
I am so going to ask him!!! =)
Unlike the Republicans, Democrats worst legislator ranked better than the BEST Republican on votes to support our troops. This is what we must emphasize. Put it in an ad. Such an ad would be powerful. Lowell, can we do this? Can such an ad be placed on Youtube by someone who knows how to do it. And how bout on the airways?
Support the troops. Vote Democratic.
That means the guys up for election have had a very easy day.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...
1. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
and the republicans are coming up empty!!!!!
Dems should just refuse to talk about it and get Iraq up there on the front pages.
That's the real story.
I hope you guys are ready to push back hard on this plagiarism crap. you had a couple days warning. Finish Allen off, this is getting tiresome.
Be ready to push back hard thats all I am saying.
Or just say, whoops forgot to site this guy, so now I am. Ok George now that that is done are you ready to talk about the issues, YET?
Granted; Sen. Kerry should avoid telling jokes -- impromptu and/or pre-prepared alike -- as if it were a plague; he has zero aptitude for it.
Granted; being "stuck in Iraq" is not something to make jokes *about* -- though that didn't deter our Resident Presidiot at all, and no great outpour of outrage followed:
http://www.youtube.c...
Granted; once again, Kerry folded like a wet hankie and keeps apologising. But, this time, he was prodded by his -- supposed -- allies, the Dems (as Lowell's above quotes show and the list of Kerry's cancelled campaign appearances proves).
And yet... And yet... And yet... There was more than a grain of truth in what Kerry had said, inadvertently or not...
When I first came here, early in '73, I attended a few courses at W&L (not for credit, but for free). I was 23 at the time, older than most students, so it was natural that I tended to hang around with other of my age group (bad enough I was the only female in class; that was before W&L went co-ed). They were guys who'd volunteered for Vietnam first, survived, and were getting educated courtesy of the army (GI bill?). They all said the same thing: "no way I could have afforded to go to a good college otherwise. I took a risk by going, but I've won the bet".
I'm certain that, even when the army is all volunteer, as it is now, there are plenty in it who joined for the same reason -- to get an education which they could not have afforded otherwise. But then, they got "stuck in Iraq" -- a war that shouldn't have happened. And which, BTW, has always been about the control of oil resources (did the volunteers care about our control of oil? Has anyone asked them?), as our Resident Presidiot admitted today:
When the army consisted of conscripts, the inequality was even more visible -- the poor and the undereducated had very few other options other than go and fight. The rich and the educated got deferrments (Bush, Cheney...)
Now, due to the lower-than-usual numbers of eager volunteers (but higher than usual *needs*, due to the resident Presidiot's atrocious "policies") the army is now lowering its standards of admission... Add that into the equation, and Kerry wasn't so far off when he said that the uneducated were much more likely to get "stuck in Iraq".
They're not *dumb*. But many of them are desperate.
Perhaps, Kerry shouldn't have cracked that silly "joke" in the first place. But, once he did, instead of apologising, he should have stuck to his guns. He should have shot from the other barrel as well:
Not only is the (s)administration, which has been baying for this war, a *pack of morons* (educated or not)... It's been screwing our young by making it difficult to get good education in the first place and *then*, rubbed salt in the wounds by *using* them -- their idealism *and* their ignorance -- for its own screwed-up priorities.
*THAT* is what's shameful, not Kerry's slip-up. Someone said: "Kerry botched a joke; they botched the war". From my POV, they botched *everything* and the war was just the beginning...
OK... I've vented; I'm off my stump :)
For many of the poor and the under-educated, volunteering for the army may be the only way to *get* education and/or the only *honorable* way to earn a living and since the army has lowered its standards on enlistment, there are more chances now for people who would not have been eligible 20 yrs ago. It's a gamble -- you gamble your present against your future -- that the desperate are more likely to take. And the desperate are likely to come from the ranks of the lowest rungs of the social ladder, not from the university elite.
You say you know 5 Ph.D. candidates who are Iraq war veterans... I'm not surprised; the Viet-vets I met 33 yrs ago, who were in college here on the GI Bill (or whatever), all had the *brains* to go that far, and I hope they did. But, *before* they came to W&L, they were just highschool graduates (and now the army will even take in highschool dropouts)...
Were the people you know in Ph.D. programs *before* they volunteered for the army? Or did they play the Russian roulette with the devil and risk their lives for the chance to study, because that was the best option they had?
You read the lists of the dead and there are far more 18-19-20yr olds than there are older folk. I ask you: do you *really* think these were Ph.D candidates who'd left their programs to help Bush win his cockamamie Operation Iraq Liberation (please note what the initials spell out)? Or the under-educated kids who got suckered and "stuck in Iraq"? Had they lived, they might have ended up in college, even in PhD programs. But they didn't get a chance, did they?
