October 31, 2006

George Bush intentionally misleads about John Kerry Iraq comment

Speaking in Georgia about an hour ago, president Bush intentionally distorted John Kerry's earlier comments about Iraq. Yesterday, speaking at Pasadena City College, Kerry said this:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

The explanation is that he meant to say this:

"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

Under that explanation, the ones who are uneducated are not our troops, but those in the Bush administration.

While that puts me on the same side as Taylor Marsh (who?), I strongly favor this interpretation, and not the interpretation offered by GOP hacks (also: 1,2,3,4,5,6)

Here's Kerry video reply.

There's dirty campaigning, and then there's being outright misleading to your readers. Hopefully those who didn't learn about this BushBot tactic in 2004 will remember it now and will remember who's engaging in it.

UPDATE: Insty continues to push what is clearly a lie. Note also that his first link above goes to this article. While I don't quote everything here either, one might expect Insty to have quoted this bit:

Do Republicans really believe that Kerry wasn't talking about Pres. Bush? (We believe that Kerry was referring to Bush because he's used a similar formulation in our presence before and quite clearly meant to call Bush a dummy.)

Posted to Politics at October 31, 2006 02:47 PM

Comments

George Bush and John Kerry should avoid any references to education and merit because they have proven that none of that matters, especially in the case of GB, where family influence was more of a consideration than education. George W. Bush would never have made president if college grades had been a consideration.

Posted by: George at October 31, 2006 03:18 PM

Posted by: George at October 31, 2006 03:22 PM

hey both are family right? both want the same thing right? the death of the USA.
PRESIDENT BUSH LIES 24/7 To you, his family memnber lies 24/7 both have families in mexico city both hate the ideals of freedom, both would join the ideals of mexico city and have long ago both hate people for understanding that fact of life and death inside this once great nation.

both are the same game.

Posted by: Fred Dawes at October 31, 2006 06:51 PM

Kerry didn't mention Bush at all. You might as well excuse his remarks by asserting that he was talking about orange juice!

Posted by: dchamil at November 1, 2006 06:08 AM

Kerry is a condescending, self-important, pompous blowhard who was probably tired after a long day, had a brain fart and said what he actually thinks. The guy seems to have no genuine sense of humor, so I really rather doubt the explanation that it was a lame attempt to make a joke at Bush's expense. Note I am not defending Bush...I despise both of these clowns.

Posted by: Gary at November 1, 2006 07:37 AM

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE TRY TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR OTHER PEOPLE. IF YOUR WRONG ADMITTED AND DRIVE ON. MR KERRY MEANT WHAT HE SAID ABOUT THE TROOPS. IT'S IN HIS HISTORY. HE DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT BUSH. THEN TO COMPOUND THINGS HE LIED ABOUT IT. FOLKS QUIT TRYING TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR THE MAN. THIS ISN'T ABOUT BEING REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT. THIS IS ABOUT SCREWING UP AND NOT HAVING THE SENSE OR COURAGE TO SAY YOUR WRONG. MR. KERRY COME CLEAN AND MAKE THINGS RIGHT.

Posted by: DOC D 45 at November 1, 2006 08:27 AM

Some people let partisanship continually cloud their view. This is a non issue. Who the fuck cares what Kerry said or meant? Bush is an idiot just trying to distract us again. President Bush let's talk about how many US GIs died this past month or how many illegal aliens have crossed the border on your watch.

Posted by: llih at November 1, 2006 09:41 AM