A very political apology

After insulting all the troops earlier this week, Presidential-hopeful John Kerry has issued what I find to be a very distasteful and half-hearted apology. His statement, at a campaign rally:

“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.”

This drew some very direct and pointed responses from the White House and directly from President Bush. Kerry’s immediate response was scattershot and obviously rushed.

This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.

In a press conference later that day:

SENATOR KERRY: Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.

If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to stamp -- rubber-stamp policies that have done injury to our troops and to their families.

My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.

...

QUESTION: Senator, John McCain said that you owe an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered this country's call because they are patriots.

To those people who didn't get your joke, who may have misinterpreted you as saying the undereducated are cannon fodder, what do you say?

KERRY: I never said that, and John McCain knows I've never said that and John McCain knows I wouldn't say that.

And John McCain ought to ask for an apology from Donald Rumsfeld for making the mistakes he's made. John McCain ought to ask for an apology from this administration for not sending in enough troops.

That kind of answer leads me to believe that Kerry doesn’t understand just how offensive his statement was. Taken out of context? Maybe. Flubbed the wording? Definitely. But what he said is what he said, and if your statement was not what you intended, an apology is needed, not a justification, not rationalizations, and certainly not political hay.

The uproar escalated, bringing on board Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Now, with everyone you can think of (except Howard Dean) calling for an apology, he has apologized. Well, sort of.

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.

I also sincerely hope the voters of this country will not allow their own misunderstanding of my words to distract them from voting for me for President in 2008.

OK, I made up that last sentence. But seriously, why is he apologizing for the reader/listener misunderstanding? An apology is supposed to include some statement of personal culpability for which there is regret. “I apologize for hurting your feelings (but I think it was the right thing to do)” is not an apology, it’s political lip service. And please, how exactly do you “personally apologize” in a press release? He can say he personally apologizes, but he hasn’t, just like he didn’t personally insult the troops but slandered them as a group.

The only reason Kerry apologized is because he had to, politically. This is the same way he makes all his decisions, and exactly why he must never be President.

[via Drudge]

Update: Scrappleface made the same points and a few more.

Sen. Kerry said his poorly-worded apology, however, does reinforce the premise of his original ‘botched joke’ about bad students being sent to war, since he is a combat veteran.

Update 2: The photo above was by the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division

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