What John Kerry Should Have Said

I was glad to see Massachusetts Senator John Kerry fire back at White House comments over his "stuck in Iraq" remark, but then saw that none of the stuff about the criticism of his remarks coming from guys who "never wore the uniform" got on the evening news. The sound bite everyone used was Kerry trying to explain his remark as a “botched joke,” which made him look weak and defensive.

Kerry never should have explained anything. He should have stepped out and said that the time for Bush, Cheney and Rove to show respect for soldiers in combat was when Kerry and a lot of other guys who couldn’t get deferments or afford to go to college went to Vietnam. Instead, the cabal in the White House went AWOL (a veiled reference to the questions around Bush’s own ANG service). Kerry might have also pointed out that it should come as no surprise that, thirty years later, these guys are happy to talk tough from the safety of the White House and let everyone else do the fighting and dying for them.

THEN he should have said that if Bush, Cheney, or the Pilsbury doughboy from Hell, Karl Rove, had any problems with what he had said, he’d be waiting for them this Sunday on Meet the Press, where he’d be happy to debate their respective records of military service. But if not, then Kerry should have told them to shut their mouths and let people who have actually heard a shot fired in anger figure out how to deal with the cesspool of violence and corruption they’ve created in Iraq.