Why the Kerry flap is a distraction

So the right-wing echo machine has its knickers in a twist and is reclining on a chaise longue fanning itself because "John Kerry dissed our troops."

For those who haven't seen what John Kerry said at a rally for Phil Angelides on Monday, here it is:

"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."

The problem is that while the transcription of what Kerry said is clear, when viewed on video (linked here), the words "us" and "stuck" can be perceived to blur together so it sounds like "You end up getting stuck in a war in Iraq."

And yes, that does sound like Kerry is saying that if you're intellectually lazy and don't study hard, you end up stuck in Iraq.

The problem is threefold.

First of all, even the misinterpretation of what Kerry said is true -- that if you for whatever reason don't have access to a great education, either because you're poor, or come from a nightmarish home, or have an undiagnosed learning disability, or if you're just struggling to get through adolescence, you may find yourself with no other opportunities in a shrinking job market than to join the military, and if you join the military these days, you're going to end up getting stuck in Iraq. However, this is not the fault of those kids who have no other choice, it's the fault of the way the Bush Administration has managed not just the war but the overall economic situation in the U.S.

The second problem is that it opens the door to the Mighty Wurlitzer to do its thing -- and as we know, a well-coordinated noise machine tends to make the meme stick. Even my own mother, who's well-informed, thought Kerry had said something stupid.

The third problem is that the whole flapdoodle is a distraction -- a distraction from Laura Bush's jump on board Rush Limbaugh's Throw the Sick Guy Down the Well bandwagon on Saturday that Michael J. Fox is "manipulating people's feelings" about stem cell research. The Thorazine Queen is largely seen as the "human" face of the Bush Administration, the "nice lady" whose popularity far exceeds that of her husband. I wonder just how popular she would be if more people saw her coldbloodedly brand a man as "manipulative" whose condition has clearly deteriorated since the LAST time she attacked him in the name of supporting her husband's pointless and idiotic policy.

And while there are those who are lauding John Kerry to the skies for standing up to the ridiculous charges that he somehow dissed the troops, I'm less than impressed. Where the hell was this guy two years ago, when it mattered? In 2004, we still had a chance to save this country from the clutches of a madman. Now a Republican Congress, with the help of certain spineless Democrats (*cough* Bob Menendez *cough*)have given this lunatic complete and unfettered power to apprehend indefinitely anyone HE decides is an "enemy combatant." So frankly, I'm really not interested in what John Kerry has to say, because he's a day late and a dollar short. Especially when his remarks are distracting from a story that would reveal that behind Laura Bush's Stepford Wife mask is a woman every bit as cold-hearted as her mother-in-law.

UPDATE: When even John Derbyshire, a man so wingnutty that he has called for the murder of Chelsea Clinton lest she reproduce, is saying that it was obvious that the intellectually lazy person John Kerry was talking about was George Bush, those who are still having the vapors (*cough* Barry *cough* -- you know, I really hope I get over this cold soon...) about Kerry's lame-ass and bungled "joke" look pretty damn silly:

John Kerry is awful, and anything we can do further to degrade his political prospects is worth doing. But really, I saw a clip of him making the much-deplored remark, and it was obvious that the dimwit in Iraq that he referred to was George W. Bush, not the American soldier. It was a dumb joke badly delivered, but his meaning was plain. My pleasure in watching JK squirm is just as great as any other conservative's, but something is owed to honesty. There's a lot of fake outrage going round here.

(Thanks to John Cole for pointing this out.)