More on the Kerry Kerfuffle

I posted yesterday about the hot-water John Kerry got himself into the other day about his ill-advised comments. Personally, and it a bit of time to realize this, but I really don't think Kerry meant to insult the troops. It was, in typical Kerry fashion, a stupid move; a bad attempt at making a bad joke. Brendan Loy, who is no Kerry fan, agrees:

I believe Kerry’s explanation. I believe him not because he’s inherently trustworthy; certainly he’s not. But I believe him because it is by far the most objectively plausible explanation for his remarks.

That makes sense, because Kerry has proven before that he has a penchant for poorly executed criticisms of Bush and the GOP, which only manage to backfire politically, especially when he tries to explain them, when a simple "my bad" will do. I've defended him in the past, from the vicious, low-class, and underhanded attacks laid on him by many of his enemies. I tried to explain away the nuances, dodges, and prevarications. A lot of the criticisms of Kerry were over the top, but the fact is, even then, he was unsteady and wobbly. Based on his regrettable support for withdraw..I mean redeployment, I can say that I'm glad he's not President, not that I'm fond of Bush. Honestly, I voted for him based on the situation at the time. Loy continues:

Alas, while the Republican response has been predictably demagogic (Bush called Kerry’s comments “insulting and shameful“), Kerry has done himself no favors with his own response, in which he painted himself as a victim of “right wing nut-jobs” — rather than as a vicitm of his own poorly chosen words — and busted out the tired, irrelevant, logically fallacious “chickenhawk” meme. Instead of going into high dudgeon and defiantly declaring that “I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy,” Kerry should have humbly apologized for choosing his words poorly in a way that caused some people to reasonably but falsely believe he was insulting the troops, and left it at that.

Now the conservative blogosphere is on fire, liberals are wringing their hands, the Republicans think they’ve been handed a gift that can turn the tide next Tuesday, and at least one Democratic congressman is understandably livid: “I guess Kerry wasn’t content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too.”

There's not much else I can add. Kerry's 2008 election chances weren't really viable after his defeat in 2004, but they are dead now, not so much based on this incident, for this is really a symptom of the larger problem with Kerry's political character. Kerry's a war hero, and there's no doubting that. He was a hero in Vietnam. The problem is, he seems to be stuck there, and has no clue how to fight the current battle. Also, he's a humorless, emotional black hole. I'll stop there, because it's starting to become a pile on, and nobody likes a pile on.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse disagrees with Kerry's explanation, and thinks he's lying. I still don't think he meant to slam the troops, but as I've said, should apologize for the implication. You know what? I'm worn out with this already. Can someone just tell Kerry to disappear for the next seven days?