With only a week to go until the November 7 midterm elections and Democrats primed for a Congressional takeover, Senator John Kerry gave his party the setback it could not afford. In what was supposed to be a witty Bush joke, Kerry told a group of California college students, “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” God, that sounds bad. I sincerely believe Kerry’s explanation–that he meant to say, “You get us stuck in a war in Iraq.” It’s a reasonable explanation. But he didn’t say that. He said what he said and we can only hope voters don’t react to it at the polls. My question is this: Why do these guys feel it necessary to be making jokes at all? The reason you botched the joke, Kerry, is because you have no experience telling jokes. You’re a senator, not a stand-up comic. Leave the jokes to Jon Stewart or Letterman and shut the fuck up. At least until the elections are over. President Bush of course got as much mileage out of the Kerry blunder as humanly possible telling a group of troop-loving Georgians, “The members of the United States military are plenty smart, and they are plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology!” It’s pathetic that so many people still react to Bush’s melodramatic nonsense. Why can’t these guys, after losing a presidential election, just fade away gracefully?

• Washington Times: John Kerry Thinks
• Seattle P.I.: A Focused, Fighting Kerry

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