Foot in mouth disease

Jay Fitzgerald: John 'Both Ways' Kerry has got himself into another one of those situations in which he valiantly tries to fight his way out of a paper bag of his own making.

... The guy's a first-class dork. We all know it. We all know he didn't mean what he said. We all also know he didn't mean what he said what he said when he was defending what he said. We all know his criticism of the Bush adminstration's criticism of his criticism and his counter criticism of the Bush adminstration's criticism was total BS. We all know it. ...

Dan Kennedy finds it interesting that Fitzgerald, no Kerry fan, recognized the failed Bush joke for what it was, yet still attacks him:

... Kerry just hasn't engendered any good will over the years, so there's nothing he can fall back on now this side of the Daily Kos. ...

Joke or not, is it really worth threatening to kill Kerry over?

Hub Politics: It is an absolute riot to watch liberal minions make any attempt to defend the junior Senator:

... "That's not what he meant to say..." or "it was a botched joke against the President..."

Please.

If those liberals who are not scrambling to defend Kerry now are going use the whole "he misspoke, here's what he meant to say..." line, then we should expect them to issue an apology to President Bush immediately.

We all know that President Bush is often mocked and ridiculed for the times he misspeaks, and I have never heard a liberal bite their tongue and say, "we know what he meant to say." You never heard that, and you never will when it comes to President Bush. But when Senator John Kerry "misspeaks," it's a different ballgame. ...

Blue Mass. Group fires back at the Herald for its Joke's on you, John front pager:

... The Herald, like so much of our media, cares more about a little domestic food-fight than a bloodbath in Iraq, with our sons, daughters, friends and neighbors right in the middle of it.

And that is shameful.

Also, Kerry is doing the right thing by upping the ante now that his "joke" has backfired:

... Now the media's paying attention to him, and now he gets to talk about Iraq. And after all, his gaffe doesn't matter in the big swing of things. 103 American deaths in Iraq this month alone -- they matter. A projected total cost of between one and two trillion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan? That matters. Weakening America's security? That matters. Consistently lying to the public? That matters. ...

Elias agrees:

Has George apologized for lying about the WMD?

Has he even said he was sorry for serving the troops a prop turkey on Thanksgiving?

Has Rumsfeld apologized for bungling the war planning, ignoring the insurgency, and stinting the troops on the necessities like body armor?

Has Cheney apologized for permitting Halliburton to get it's ugly snout so deep in the Iraqi trough that they are snorting up splinters?

Hell NO! ...

The Outraged Liberal notes the Republican attack machine in full battle mode:

The picture that emerges upon a little reflection is of a White House so desperate to change the subject that is uses the Kerry "joke" gin up the attack machine -- including the now-compliant John McCain -- and launches a coordinated response with Tony Snow that tries to relive the glory days of the 2004 election.

John Kerry also tries to relive the past and respond the way he should have two years ago. Instant "crisis" for the network correspondents, pundits in hot pursuit. ..

Mike Mennonno hopes that if any good comes out of the incident, it's that Kerry not run for president again in 2008:

... He was a poor candidate the first time around, nominated by his party as a symbolic gesture in a half-hearted effort to unseat an incumbent. Half-hearted because the Democrats were already looking ahead to '08 by which time, they figured, the GOP will have imploded, leaving the field open for Democratic successes across the board.

They chose Kerry in '04 because their strategy was failure. Apparently he didn't get the memo.

New England Republican says the joke's on Kerry because he went to the same school as Bush and had roughly the same GPA.

Teddy: Learn your limitations, John.