Kerry’s Sense of Humor MIA
Fri March 26th, 2004 00:06 MSTJohn Kerry has a serious character defect for a potential president: He lost his sense of humor. I watched Bush give quite a funny and self-deprecating performance at the annual Correspondent’s dinner last night. But the always serious long faced Kerry missed the point (like usual).
His campaign released the following memo:
“How Out of Touch Can This President Be?
“George Bush insulted me as a veteran and as a friend to many still serving in Iraq. This act lowers the dialogue about weapons of mass destruction. War is the single most serious event that a President or government can carry its people into. No weapons of mass destruction have been found and that is no joke - this is for real. This cheapens the sacrifice that American soldiers and their families are dealing with every single day.” — Brad Owens (Iraqi War Veteran, US Army Reserves)
Hey, I’m a veteran, why didn’t he ask me? Having a sense of humor appears to be a disqualification to be a Kerry supporter.
Speaking at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington last night, President George W. Bush showed a stunningly cavalier attitude the correct phrasing is “gave an amusing performance” toward the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Administration’s rush to war.“Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” Bush mimicked, as a slide of the President looking under furniture in the Oval Office appeared on the screen.
That’s supposed to be funny?
Yeah… it was really funny. Especially in context which was, of course, left out of this press release.
If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he’s even more out of touch than we thought. Unfortunately for the President, this is not a joke.
Joke’s on you, Kerry-don’t-forget-I-was-in-Vietnam. You just don’t get it.
585 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last year, 3,354 have been wounded, and there’s no end in sight. Bush Turned White House Credibility into a Joke George Bush sold us on going to war with Iraq based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But we still haven’t found them, and now he thinks that’s funny?
To anyone with a sense of humor who actually saw the performance, yes, it was. It’s traditional for the speaker at this event to make fun of current events. We now have one more reason that you shouldn’t be elected, Mr. I’m-A-Highly Decorated-Veteran-Kerry - you might speak at that event, and bore us all to death.
Of course, Kerry probably forgot his own joke, just like he forgot that he attended a meeting where assassinating senators was proposed (Drudge):
“Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they’re to shoot Quayle,” Kerry joked in 1988. The Massachusetts Democrat then said, “There isn’t any press here, is there?”
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The Democrats think it is fair game to joke that the commander-in-chief is a “deserter” but he is not allowed to make even a self-deprecating joke.
John Kerry started it by saying, “in 1968, ‘67 and ‘69…there were many people who chose to go to the guard because the odds of being called up and going to Vietnam were very low.”
Piling onto Kerry’s attack were Democrats Terry McAuliffe, Michael Moore and Robert Spellane. McAuliffe called Bush AWOL. Moore called Bush a deserter. Massachusetts State Representative Spellane told a group of schoolchildren that patriotism is not landing on an aircraft carrier dressed in a flight suit. Ironically, McAuliffe, Moore and Spellane are not even veterans.
This is way beyond the pot calling the kettle black.
Back in the early 1970s, John Kerry was a national officer in the Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW). One thing Kerry’s VVAW did to subvert our war effort was the running of Conscientious Objector (CO) counseling centers. The reader might now well ask: How did offering counseling to conscientious objectors subvert our war effort? What did CO counseling have to do with AWOLs or deserters.
In the book, Winter Soldiers, An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, VVAW activist Bill Davis is quoted: “We had commercials on all the rock stations, “If you’re AWOL, or you’re going through town, stop and see us; maybe we can help you.”
He stated that his chapter of VVAW would receive hundreds of such walk-in requests on a monthly basis: “Hey, I’m AWOL. What can you guys do for me?” He continues, “I’d tell guys straight out: I don’t care if you are (a conscientious objector) or not—just lie, if that’s what it takes to get out.” So, there it is: VVAW was trying to get our active duty service men to “get out.”
But Kerry’s organization was not only targeted against those on active duty. VVAW was also trying to turn the National Guard. George Bush’s National Guard.
Davis continued, “We worked a lot with the Guard and reserve. The reserve and Guard units wouldn‘t meet every weekend, there’d be different ones, but we had enough info: we knew which ones were meeting at what time, and we’d be there leafleting [at] four o’clock in the morning.” Davis added that VVAW was also undermining the ROTC program as well.
But George Bush never broke faith with his country. George Bush never joined John Kerry’s VVAW. Nor did he ever give aid and comfort to our enemies.
I don’t think jokes are allowed on Kerry’s home planet. Forget that he also said there were WMDs–the sanctimony just drips from this guy. Good for us.
The Quayle joke was actually kind of funny…until Kerry re-told it. I guess assassination humor is okay; Quayle WAS a senator, after all.
I woke up this morning and turned on the computer to find a somewhat perplexing Chicago Tribune article on George Bush’s ‘humor,’ by one Frank James: It seems–according to James–that Larry Syverson, a Richmond, Virginia resident with two boys serving in Iraq, is unhappy with Mr. Bush’s recent jokes regarding the war in Iraq and WMD’s. “It’s unfortunate,” said Syverson, “that the president jokes while our boys are dying in Iraq.”
Wondering just who this Larry Syverson is, I typed his name into the computer and discovered that the man is a well-known middle-Virginia anti-Iraq war protestor who spends much of his time standing alone on streetcorners, toting anti-Bush placards. To be expected, Syverson, 54, is not a veteran, and he can’t “understand why motorists frequently drive by [his] house and shout epithets” at him.
What I can’t understand myself, is: How is it that this man’s sons ultimately decided on military careers? Apparently, both boys are regular Army, and both proudly hold down potentially-dangerous ground-assault-related military occupational specialties…. Could it be that their milquetoast dad is too jaded, too befogged by years of hemp abuse and resistance to the ‘establishment,’ that he can no longer think clearly, and, like so many Americans of his ilk, has inadvertantly raised sons who truly care about their country, and understand the real meaning of service and sacrifice?
And what is it with John Kerry, anyway? He grows red-faced and indignant when Bush brings a little levity to the presidential campaign, and responds by whining, “Bush has attacked my combat record. There’s nothing funny about war.” Problem is, isn’t it Terry McAuliffe and the Dems’ who’ve continually attacked the president’s military record? Wasn’t it the Dems,’ in fact, who initiated this military-service-record name-calling spree in the first place? Kerry has frequently–no, incessantly–attacked Bush’s military record. And how many times has Bush attacked Kerry’s, I ask you?
I still think Bush is a pretty brainy guy for flying military fighter aircraft in his Guard days, and for landing that aircraft aboard that flattop, recently. And I still believe that the Dems’–and perhaps even Mr. Kerry, himself–are having one hell of a hard time reconciling the fact that Bush performed a feat Kerry can only dream of emulating.
And, besides, I thought Bush’s humor pretty timely–as well as keen. But, then, what would I know–I’m only a veteran, and a newly-established member of that ‘vast right-wing conspiracy.’
Owens is a former David Duke supporter…
Interesting points, But Bush goes to far with his humor when he jokes about such a large mistake, one that has caused the invasion of a nation and the subsequent loss of thousands of lives. I joke about my memory when ive lost my car keys, but i dont joke about losing a gun at a crime scene when i just killed someone.