Reply #12: There is one thing about this article that's hard to believe: [View All]

[ProSense]

Kerry -- who had methodically resurrected his political standing after a tough loss to President Bush in 2004 -- was stunned by the swift, angry reaction to his Oct. 30 statement that underachieving students would end up "stuck in Iraq." Aides and friends say the senator was particularly stung by the fact that so many Democrats had joined Republicans in rebuking him.

The incident laid bare to the senator the lingering skepticism and resentment of him two years after he failed to unseat Bush, according to Kerry advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In recent media interviews, Kerry has downplayed the impact of the incident, and has declared himself ready to jump into Senate business with renewed vigor when Democrats take control of Congress in January.

He was stung! Everyone knows this was purely political, and the Democrats who did so did it for political reasons, maybe related to the war or some other political alliance they have.

I find it hard to believe Kerry was stung by Democrats joining to rebuke him! Was he stunned during BCCI?

This is more likely where things stand:

David Thorne, Kerry's friend and former brother-in-law, said it was "very hard to determine" the full impact of the mistake because it was difficult to separate the partisan "noise" from the substantive damage to Kerry's image.

Thorne said Kerry will make his decision about the presidency mindful of how analysts predicted he'd lose both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary; he ultimately won both en route to the Democratic nomination -- and a narrow loss to Bush.

"One thing I can assure you of is that the Washington pundit class really gets it wrong a lot of the time," Thorne said.

Kerry and his top aides reached out to his network of fund-raisers shortly after the incident and in the weeks since, to reassure those concerned about whether the senator could secure the nomination.

All in all, it's not a bad article, but I still don't trust the media to not try to spin more there than is actually there (stunned!).