Kerry was right to apologize

[ButterflyBlood]

Today I went to a rally fora congressional candidate Kerry was scheduled to speak at, but didn't due to this. I don't care, it was still a wonderful rally with high turnout, but this event did come closer to home with me more than many others. But that's beside the point.

Here's the fact: Kerry made a stupid gaffe saying something that could be construed as offensive. Yes, he did not INTEND to say that, but he did. It's that simple. If you make a mistake, you should apologize, even when it's a rather innocent and harmless one. Yes, Republicans get away with saying things far worse, but that's irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right.

And if Kerry refused to apologize, what do we gain? Absolutely nothing. Some DUers just want him to "stand up to Karl Rove" and all that, but that's just pointless venting. No one's going to vote Republican now because he aplogized. It's doubtful anyone would vote Republican because of the remark either since Kerry isn't on the ballot, but it does eat up news time we need pointing out how badly the Republicans have fucked up. He needed to apologize and nip this in the bud, and should've done so much sooner.

Occasionally newspapers and magazines will sometimes have typos printing racial slurs and other offensive things they didn't intend to print. But they apologize anyway. Kerry made a similar mistake, and refusing to apologize does nothing.

[Infinite Hope]

1. Moderators???

Why? Why I ask!

Why is this not a comment on one of the other billion Kerry threads. There is NO reason for this to be its own thread. Does DU have ANY moderators anymore??????????????????????????????????????

[bigwillq]

2. I think in the next cycle

you should try out to be a moderator.

I think the mods are doing a fine job. There is nothing wrong with this OPs thread.

[shawcomm]

3. 255 posts and you keep telling mods what to do?

You've got the audacity of a republican.

[sandnsea]

5. As it was explained to me

Some moons ago - GD is pretty much a duplicate post, mods wouldn't be able to do anything if all they did was try to moderate duplicate posts. Sorry. Thems the rules.

[AtomicKitten]

4. He should have done it yesterday

BEFORE the RNC started cutting ads today. He gave them another news cycle with the posturing. We don't have time to piss around with this. I think his ego got in the way. It was a bullshit fake outrage ploy on the part of the Rs, but this is one of those times when things should have been put in order quickly to put the focus back on the election. Dems have lost the momentum now.

[karynnj]

6. I disagree

If he just apologized, it would have been spun just like the Durbin apology when Durbin did nothing wrong was. Like Durbin, he would have gotten no credit for the apology and it would have been used as a confirmation that he did what they said - and NO credible parsing of the sentence gets to everybody in the military is dumb. You can't then react with outrage - after apologizing. It makes the apology seem insincere.

He did within the first news cycle on Tuesday afternoon - after Drudge started this Tuesday morning - respond with an angry smack down of the distortion and of Bush's Iraq policy. Kerry, who has been a real advocate of veterans and who is genuine in his concern, let people see his honest reaction. So, the first news cycle did include Kerry's defense and a smackdown of Bush's policy.

The second newscycle was Wednesday. When on Imus, Kerry praised the troops and spoke of what he has done on veteran's issues - which Imus agreed to (though I doubt he has any expertise - but he was someone Kerry knew agreed that he did), he avoided a clear cut apology here - though he did say he regretted messing up the statement - "anyone would , it makes you look stupid". Imus would clearly have liked the apology on his show, but it was complex enough Kerry was better off putting it out clearly in writing. He used Imus to get out his support of veterans and that he was going back to DC and cancelling appearnces so candidates wouldn't be forced to deal with this. Later in the day, he issued a carefully written apology - for the only thing that he could sincerely apologize for - which was that people could have been hurt by the way his comments were interpreted.

There has been so much exaggeration on the time frame, that I actually had to look to the JK threads to verify that I was not wrong. News media speaking of estimates like 96 hours yesterday were simply wrong - there were FEWER than 96 hours since the speech. It also would have been strange if Kerry on Monday night even thought to issue a statement that he mangled a line in that evening's speech. (It would almost sound Monty Pythonish - pointing out a minor misspeaking on a joke at an otherwise successful event. So, the real time line starts in the morning on Tuesday when Drudge first pushed it. Today is Thursday.

I think Kerry is hurt because they found something to misuse - but this was not hard. Kerry's critisim of Bush for the last 2 years has been intense and strong. As the RW consider attacks on the CIC's war policy to be hurting the troops, they had many lines to choose from. The only people they can't extract a line out of context from are those not speaking out. It also seems that handling as he did may have been the best he could do once it started. For the party, it got Murtha speaking of the troops and Iraq on the air to replace endless comments on novels by Webb.

Carville, who I have criticized, was excellent - in concisely focusing it as Kerry botched a joke, Bush botched a war. Had all Democrats reacted by putting things in that perspective, the story would have ended on Tuesday, because the Republicans would have dropped it. Now we likley will hear it for a few days - because it would be a defeat if the Republicans dropped it now.

[AtomicKitten]

7. This is by no stretch of the imagination Kerry's fault.

This was orchestrated by the Rovian mischief-makers to change the subject. My point was this should have been recognized for what it was from the get-go and Kerry should have immediately thrown a bucket of ice water on it and not given them a nanosecond to spin their melodramatic response.

Now it's time to move beyond this and get back to the election already in progress.