John Kerry Thinks the Military is Stupid

The recent John Kerry scandal is pretty disappointing. It makes me really sad to see the many people on the many different sides of this “controversy” acting so poorly. Digesting this little fiasco fills me with the same feeling of disgust I get when I‘m in a rush but cannot walk on the escalator because of the fourteen year old couple necking in front of me.* If I’m sleep deprived and the couple is a biracial mix of Asian female and Caucasian male (don’t ask, I can’t explain it) I get really, really frustrated with humanity. Anyway, this “scandal” replicates that feeling of contempt quite well.

First off let’s here is what Kerry said. Now let’s put forth a few possible theories of explanation.

1. Kerry believes that people who do not apply themselves in school will be forced to join the army and will end up in Iraq. He has no respect for US soldiers themselves and his joke was written with the intent of insulting them.
2. Kerry momentarily blacked out and the “joke” which slipped out reveals his deep-seated and deeply embedded contempt and disrespect for military personnel.
3. Kerry is a liberal douche who was trying to be funny by using the oft-used comedic ploy of equating “George Bush” with “lacking intelligence.” He slipped up in delivery and meant to criticize the policies of the president.

Which one of these scenarios is genuinely the most plausible? The first one is unrealistic because no politician would be stupid enough to voluntarily tell the truth if it meant detriment to their political aspirations. (Of course how many times has, “No politician would be stupid enough to [blank],” been proven wrong?) The second one just doesn’t strike me as plausible either (although more plausible than the first). So, ultimately, I think everyone is making way too much out of this non-newsworthy story. Two points to take away in the end:

1. John Kerry is remarkably stupid (or remarkably unlucky, depending on your point of view). Every politically astute Democrat in the country collectively cringed as they heard his joke while Karl Rove is probably still musing over whether or not this counts as his Christmas present from Kerry and the Democrats. And Kerry’s aggressive initial response to his critics… did he really think the republicans WOULDN’T find a former serviceman/current politician to speak out? John McCain?

2. If you are a close relative of anyone in the armed forces who had above a C average in high school or who attended any form of college and you were NOT on TV or radio or in print or on youtube this week then you missed your best chance at 3 seconds of fame. Fox News wanted you.** People that feel the need to share how offended they were are weird. (Even I can't criticize people that are doing this after losing a relative in Iraq but I still can't understand their motivations.)
   

*People who don’t walk up escalators intrigue me. Have they had a rough day? Do they always stand on escalators? Do they have foot blisters? Are they lazy? People who block everyone else from walking on escalators kill me. I just don’t get it. Escalators are designed to speed up the flow of people and walking up or down stairs is faster than standing on an escalator? How does inaction make sense?

**I really can’t hate Fox News. They provide you with decent news from a slightly conservative (on a whole… very conservative for a major news network) viewpoint. The one truly annoying trait about the network is their knack for incessantly claiming to be completely impartial. While they aren’t impartial, if you cannot weed out the fact from the right-wing spin then you are going to fall for anything… which is probably why you either religiously watch or staunchly refuse to watch their news in the first place.