Kerry: Bonehead or Jackass?

Kerry's most recent contretemps was his warning to a group of college kids that they should either work hard in school or get "stuck in Iraq."

To see Kerry implant his foot in his mouth, click here.

Kerry's explanation, that he meant to say, "if you don't work hard, you end up getting us stuck in Iraq," is plausible. However, when he started to hears the "oohhh's," shouldn't he have gotten a clue that his joke was misconstrued, and attempted to clarify. And people think Bush mangles words.

Regardless of that, why did his speech writers get anywhere near this subject. One of the leitmotifs in the war coverage is the difficulty of recruitment, and how the military has had to lower its standards to meet their quotas. Furthermore, one of the main talking points against the war is how it disproportionately affected the poor, who presumably joined the military in such large numbers because they lack the educational background to choose another career path.

Anyway, this just reinforces Kerry's egotistical reputation. And why must Kerry cause such a huge stink now. He should simply make a clarification, apologize for any misunderstanding, and drop the issue. This is taking up unnecessary airtime, and allowing the Republicans to go on the offensive. I mean, doesn't he understand that he has no chance of getting the nomination? Now, Democrats are going have to waste time defending themselves by stating how they support the troops, instead of hitting the Republicans on the mismanagement of the war and the economy.

The CNN article is here.

Addendum: Admittedly, even if Kerry makes an attempt to drop the issue, undoubtedly the Republican spin machine will keep trying to harp on this. However, if Kerry had dropped the issue and just made his clarification, I think the issue would have petered out sooner. Now, because of Kerry's manifesto (which I enjoyed as much as the next guy), the media is going to keep this incident on the cycle for the next couple days, possibly even running into the election. CNN is already framing this issue as Bush v. Kerry II. The "netroot" blogs aren't helping either by defending Kerry, and thus lengthening the lifespan of this story.