Friday, November 03, 2006

Overly polite.

Kerry screwed up in allowing his speech writers to write a line that was too obtuse. I'm sure you've all hear what the press says that he said:

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

But what he REALLY said was:

"Anyway, yesterday I was in the state of Texas. As you all know, President Bush used to live there. Now he lives in a state of denial. A state of deception.

I'm glad to be here with you. I really am. Thank you for the privilege of coming here. We're here to talk about education, but I want to say something before that – you know, education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."


I don't know about you, but when I heard this I knew he was talking about Dubbya because I heard the sentences before the one that gets all the airplay. And when the spinsters started working and released the text that Kerry was SUPPOSED to say, it was even more clear.

"Yesterday I was in President Bush’s home state of Texas. He no longer lives there. Now he lives in the state of denial.

It’s great to be here with college students. 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. Just ask President Bush."


But, as I said, it was too obtuse. Too clever for his own good. The speech writers were being too generous to the President and trying to make it a joke. And Kerry, trying to speak like himself instead of like his speechwriters and not being an actor, paraphrased and flubbed it. That was unfortunate to feed such easily-twisted fuel to the wingnuts. He should have kept it simple and to the point. He SHOULD have said:

"President Bush is a moron."

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