<< "In the case of the botched joke, clearly there is room for doubt." >>
Sorry Allen. When you have top Dem politicos calling for Kerry to apologize, the gig is up. Dems tend to go silent, or worse, defend their own when one of their peers clearly crosses the line (as does the MSM).
Any objective reading of Kerry's words in proper context makes it clear he smeared the troops (it's even worse if you watch the tape).
He was speaking to students about getting a good education. Kerry's tone & inflection were dead serious as he read from a prepared statement.
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you
study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to
be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck
in Iraq.”
Part of that context includes Kerry's long history of falsely smearing our troops. This certainly looks like more of the same.
Now consider that Bush got better grades than Kerry while at Harvard. Nothing Kerry said makes any sense if it's a joke about Bush.
Then consider that Kerry changed his story no less than 3 times. First he lashed out at Republicans:
"Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in
response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow,
assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show
hosts desperately distorting Kerry's comments..."
....I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White
House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush
Limbaugh.... to start lying about me just as they have
lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican
hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie
and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who
have.
Then Kerry switched to claiming it was a "botched joke". The punchline was supposed to be:
“If you don’t you get us stuck in Iraq!”
The next day the punchline was changed back to the original, “you get stuck in Iraq”, but added:
“Just ask President Bush.”
Sorry Allen. Game over. Kerry can't even come up with a plausible excuse. Instead the excuses just kept on changing from bad to worse. None of it was remotely believable.
Kerry has ZERO credibility - as if he had any before this horrific gaffe.
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