I think I’ve seen this sort of apology before…
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
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He really is sorry you guys are too stupid to understand he wasn’t calling you dumb.
Quite so – now all he needs to do is appear on the Senate floor and blub like Durbin did…
“I apologize to all the crazy people out there who were nuts enough to take my words at face value. You’re all on my apology list, right after ‘no one’.”
…randomly mocked civilians, blubbered in a fashion reminiscent of Dick Durbin, slandering troops and their chain of command for fun…”
The political apology gene is the same mal-expressed fundamental that has the Kos monkey’s screaming about winning, no matter the corruption, tactic, or moral cost. It wasn’t that long ago that overt media talk about cooly sciencing the voter’s collective behavioral response to spin and what amounts to deception was a rarity. Today it’s standard fucking procedure.
We’re not a people of reason, we’re a people of sheer opportunistic manipulation. I may part company whith the Republicans right at that divide: Make any issue about effect and not cause, and you’ve conceded the principle of the thing, and with that, as with Kerry et al, your soul.
Is it really worth it, you pathological politicians? I say vote the entire pack of 535 liars out every single term until we regain our collective minds in this country. This political apology/election/spin circus should be marched outside and shot, so to speak.
Lying through your teeth to voters is one thing. Lying through your teeth and watching the polls as to whether or not it improved your filthy political soul’s chances to hold an office you’d then, naturally, shit in is quite another.
Ain’t a gonna be no blubbin’ from Frenchy, I gar-un-tee it.
That was a non-apology apology, which fits with the whole waffle personality.
This is in the same time zone as those pathetic athlete apologies for some stupid or heinous act they performed because of their arrogant attitudes towards life, the universe and everyone. “If anyone was offended by my actions, I truly apologize.”
Hmmm. Remind you of someone? Maybe Kerry called T.O. and Drew Rosenhaus for apology advise.
A proper apology is “I’m sorry for what I said.” not “I’m sorry that you were too frackin’ dumb to figure out my intentions and got all of your olive green panties in a bunch. BTW: Republicans suck and it’s all their fault.” How about “While this in no way reflects what I was trying to say or how I really feel, I recognise that speaking these words in this way could be hurtful to the men and women of our armed forces. For that mistake, I apologize.” Instead we get “Sorry you couldn’t figure it out, but I needed to make a <wink,wink> <nod, nod> to all of my Brahmin, elitist, aristocratic friends because they know what those poor, undereducated military personnel are like.”
Great googly moogly I just can’t stand him even a little bit.
Oh, and let’s not forget that he issued a frackin’ statement through his frackin’ mouthpiece rather than face the cameras and apologize in frackin’ person like a frackin standup guy!!
AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHH!
I agree with 6gun. Deep six the entire lot of bastards and start fresh. Of course I also believe in the impending Apocalypse…
I’ve said this before elsewhere, but if Kerry meant to tell a bad joke (as I believe he did) then the “sorry if you were offended” is an appropriate response. No sense in pretending to “sincerely” apologize for seeming to say something you didn’t mean. This is the home of the blogger-king of intellectually honest intentionalists, after all. Demanding obsequious apologies for unintended gaffs is pretty unbecoming here.
On the other hand, I think he owes an actual apology for his ridiculously assaultive response, which called everyone who quite reasonably misunderstood him “crazy”. And if he wants to apologize for being a Frenchie, terroist-coddling, mindless fucktard, I’m all ears.
– So ss , you’re prepared to accept his after the fact contrived bullshit, adding insult to injury. even in the face of the MSM manipulating the presentation of his comments to try to give force to that rediculous bit of CYA.
– Everyone knows from Kerry’s career long history, that he holds animus, and a sincere personal view of elitist scorn for the military. But he lays out atortured logic rearrangement of his words, and you buy it.
– He thinks he’s superior to the lessor fools he tolorates, and proves it with this bit of wordcraft tap dancing. You may dislike his arrogant snobbishness, but if you fall for it he’s got a point. Watching otherwise intelligent people do this sort of thing, it’s no wonder he feels the way he does, says the things he does, does the things he does.
– The only reason he issued the “non-apology” apology, is his own were turning on him like a pack of rabid dogs, not because he’s really contrite or thinks he’s wrong.
SS, I don’t think “intentionalism” means what you think it means.
It’s not about what he meant to say. It’s about what he said.
ss:
No, the appropriate response, given that his words were what they were, would be: “I’m sorry I did a miserable job in delivering that joke. It did not come out as I intended it to, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it.”
That is, if you believe it was supposed to be a Bush joke. I don’t. If that’s it was intended to be, even Lurch is smart enough to drop the unequivocal apology quickly and move on. Instead, he hemmed and hawed while he waited to see who was going to cream him, and only “apologized” after he realized that it was going to be virtually everyone.
He may have gone off script, but he didn’t go out of his mind.
tw: doing67
Just two more!
ss
I just think that this has moved way past intentionalism. To be completely cynical and borderline machiavellian, there is hay to be made.
I give you the banner headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Kerry’s Gaffe Jolts Santorum, Casey” Casey is trying to take the high road, calling Kerry a patriot and a person who just made an honest mistake. He’s getting hammered from all quarters. Santorum’s biggest problem was his inability to pin Casey down hard on anything. Casey has just been beating him with that big old Bush club. Now Casey’s looking wishy-washy while Santorum holds news conferences with vets standing behind him. Will it be enough? Probably not, but it gives him the chance that he didn’t have 4 days ago.
Screw Kerry and his arrogance in addition to his intentionalism.
Good lord, McGehee. Look it up.
BigBang– If you don’t believe him, that’s fine. His history certainly earns him no presumptions. And yeah, he’s an elitist snob who harbors contempt for the military and has an allegience only to the “America that can be.” I’m with ya. And yeah, the media covers for him like they’ve still got his bumper-stickers on their cars.
But if he meant to slur the troops, and then realized, quickly after he got in trouble, that he could just add ONE WORD and turn it into a plausible Bush-is-dumb joke? Frickin’ GENIUS!! Goddam, he’s a word-smith mofo ARTIST, man!
But I don’t believe he’s a genius wordsmith. I think he’s a retard who flubbed a dumbass joke and ended up with his foot in his mouth, again.
The funny thing is, even if you give Lurch the benefit of the doubt and assume he flubbed a joke, the joke goes like this; I don’t believe your (the troops) mission. It is doomed for failure, and your C-in-C is a stupid poopy head. Don’t take it the wrong way though, I am sure he meant it respectfully.
Um, isn’t that the Democratic platform?
Good lord, SS, does intentionalism require us to read minds?
Jeff has actually spoken on this matter, SS—you must have missed it—and his answer is a damn sight closer to mine than to yours.
Look it up.
yeah, I guess. what does that prove though? Certainly doesn’t prove he has any respect for the troops or their intelligence. I am sure more than a few of them believe in the mission.
No, intentionalism doesn’t require you to read minds, and it is the responsibility of the speaker to attempt to speak clearly. But intentionalism requires the listener to appeal to intent to determine the meaniing of a statement. Adhering to “what was said” to the exclusion of the speaker’s intent is the opposite of intentionalism. I’m quite confident of Jeff’s support on this point. It’s perfectly fine if you doubt Kerry’s sincerity, but I just find the “botched joke” excuse too clever to not be true.
I like to flatter myself by thinking I’m an eloquent wordsmith who could conjure up le bon mot juste anytime to articulate any given feeling or response to something professed.
Alas, I can’t find in me enough words to describe the contempt, revulsion, and anger that washes over me in waves towards John Fucking Kerry and all he represents about the elitist, traitorous left in this country.
This cocksucker didn’t flub a joke. He let slip what he truly feels in front of what he figured was a friendly crowd. He’s been saying the same thing about the military for over 30 years. If ever there was an object lesson in intentionalism, this is it.
Well, I didn’t intend for this thread to start any squabbling….heh.
Given that these days perceived motive counts as much toward a sentence for, say, murder, as the outcome of the crime itself does, I’m betting that’s the next stop on the Left’s political whistle stop tour of lunacy.
But I didn’t mean to stab her thirty times, your Honor, and if that was wrong, I apologize. Can I go out and play now? And the jury says, awww.
Or as we normal humans refer to it, the ethical madness willfully induced by daily bong hits of Progressivistaâ„¢, Big Washington’s drug for dysfunctional Democrat dependents.
What happens is irrelevant. What was intended might be. How you perceive it definitely is. It’s only natural from the Party that won’t take responsibility as each and every one of their intended socialist first effects adds ruin to the country by way of very real second, third, and fourth effects.
Leftists are the idea-makers with no ideas. Conservatives are just the folks who pay their bills.
Leave J Effing K alone. After all, he means well. He promised me free health care … and I almost bought it.
He said what he said. I could give a rat’s ass what his intentions were. The statement in question fits in nicely with the lies he told to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in ‘71 and his statement last December.
After his little mission with the North Veitnamese, Jean Francios shouldn’t be a citizen, let alone a U.S. Senator.
Ai. I can hear Jeff Goldstein turning over in his grave.
Whatever. I am sorry you misunderstood me is still not the same thing as I am sorry I misspoke, and if his intent was to make a joke about Bush getting us stuck in Iraq then he absofuckinglutely misspoke.
In this case, Kerry’s statement could be generously acknowledged to be ambiguous, as it isn’t obvious who “you” refers to in the phrase, “you get stuck in Iraq.” He could have meant the troops or he could mean Bush, because in a manner of speaking, Bush is stuck in Iraq. The addition of the word “us” (“you get us stuck in Iraq”) certainly clarifies who “you” refers to. But it changes the meaning of the sentence only slightly if “you” was intended to refer to Bush, in which case Kerry could honestly say sorry you misunderstood me, rather than sorry I misspoke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah and the Pope might build a Vatican in Vegas, too.
I find it fascinating that someone’s so willing to get down on his knees in front of a proven traitor, just to excuse him *this* time around.
I find it disappointing to find, here of all places, such indifference to intellectual honesty. Many of us have sat here debating finer points than this without being constantly invited to dismiss the matter because the “defendant” is so self-evidently an asshole. It’s frustrating because this is the same shit liberals do everytime Bush says anything at all. It’s pointless to argue with them, because their first principle is that Bush is a lying asshole. Any defense of anything he touches is a “fascinating” apology for a proven fascist chimp. Same shit.
If it helps you sleep better at night to think so, by all means…
ss – try this. The lead in statements were “You” study hard, and do “Your” homework, and “You” can be smart….Otherwise “You” end up stuck in Iraq.
– What sort of mental gymnastics would the listener be required to perform to devine he ment “You” “Your” “You” to the students…..But “You” as Bush.
– *Shrug*, guess it must be “THE NUANCE!”
*cough*
Try this: a little joke everybody’s heard a dozen times on Jayvid Lenoman:
“Eeeehh, Heard about this? Have you heard about this? What are we supposed to tell our kids? Study hard in school, don’t do drugs, don’t drink and drive, or else what? Or else you’ll end up being picked by the Supreme Court to be the President of the Most Powerful Nation In The World.”
What does “you” refer to? OK, obviously the audience, but quite clearly, it’s a Bush joke. “You’ll” be what? You’ll be Bush. You=Bush. Same joke.
– I still blame it all on Flockhart….
– I also put this little display of insufferable narrcissitic elitism right up there with the dude that decided to wear a Hitler costume to school on Halloween….
– Decidedly bad taste at best…..Stupid at worst…
– Oh, and not that it matters at this point, but the lovable Seymour Hersch just dotted the “i” in stupid.
– I guess VietNam will just never die until all the old farts that had any hand in the whole mess are dead.
You know, it’s ironic that he says this; because the last group to promote an intervention in Mesopotamia was the likes of Arnold Wilson, an
Oxford educated agent of the Indian Civil Service,
Percy Cox, a Sandhurst grad and long time Arabist
and Churchill, via Harrow and Sandhurst. the military commander there, during the hight of
the revolt was Aylmer Haldane, a fellow Sandhurst
graduate and former associate from the Malakand
campaign in the NorthWest Frontier,(you know
where Bin Laden is supposedly hiding; where the
Brits conducted half a century worth of operations) Ironically, all this advice, made the
Brits choose the wrong course; elevate the Sunni
chieftain and clergy; typified by their first
prime minister, the niquab of Baghdad; father to
the future Iraqi Quisling Rashid Ghailani) dis-
encfranchise the Shia; and let the other majorities; (Kurds,Assyrians, go hang)
ss, does the fact the NYT refused to reprint the exact comment, the fact there are three or four revisions of the “joke” out there by now, the fact the media itself can’t decide, the fact the Dhimmicrats hate themselves, and the fact Kerry’s a lying sack of shit sway your point of view in any way?
See, Bush may speak for crap, his daddy may be be connected more ways than God, oil may run through his veins, Cheney may shoot like shit, and Team Buscho may be the biggest set of neocon socialists ever to break it’s veto pen for the better part of a decade, but when the Left accuses him/it/they of manufacturing Iraq and draining the seas and igniting Mars for profits, it’s simply uncredible.
But when Kerry says soldiers and/or their CC are idiots, it’s utterly in character. And the post-event spin has all the signs of partly coordinated damage control for the embarrassing lost child of the Left’s supreme power grab.
IOW, had Hilary said it, well, she wouldn’t have. Hilary, ss.
Call Bush a conspiritorial three-eared Saturian gas monster in a black helicopter who firebombs skyscrapers and be dismissed as a moonbat. Call Kerry a fraudulent, medal throwing coward and washed up warhero wannabee with a lifelong complex about soldiering at the very least you’re consistent with reality.
ss,
You’re kidding, right? “You” is those who don’t get edumacated in college. If you do right, you do well. If not you get stuck in Iraq. That’s the problem with what he said, no?
::cough cough::
One of the things intentionalism has to account for is intention to dissemble; when people speak they do not always express their true intent. Another is misspeaking, failure to adequately express the intent. Both of those are tests for the intentionalist interpreter.
Fortunately, the two tend to occur together, and the content of the erroneous speech may give clues to the actual (as well as the expressed, i.e. dissembling) intent.
In this case the clues are abundant, and are reinforced by later output from the same speaker. monkyboy had it here before Kerry ever bloviated the second time: Kerry, a veteran, could not possibly be dissing the troops; it doesn’t make sense that that was his intent.
Except that it does. John Kerry’s entire political career is based on dissing the military, starting with 1971 and right on through the present day. During the Presidential campaign of 2000, and again through the present day, he and his apologists have attempted to dissemble, to rephrase Kerry’s lifelong preoccupation in such a way as to make it more palatable to the military and its supporters. What they have actually succeeded in doing is making themselves clearly liars, in addition to such trivialities as defining Reserve service as dishonorable.
Yeah, Kerry clearly misspoke, obviously muffed a joke despite reading it from the TelePrompter. But his misspeaking is totally revealing. He obviously holds the troops in contempt so strongly that that attitude overrode his intent to dissemble—he was thinking about what piss-poor imitations of human beings the military were, that got mixed up with his point about Bush being a piss-poor imitation of humanity, and what came out was a combination that expressed his true intent rather than the lie he intended to tell by implication.
His later “apology”—basically the standard Leftist sneer of “if the shoe fits” dressed up in mellifluous metonymy—just ices the cake. The man’s an ass. Defending him or apologizing for him is prima facie evidence of assery on the part of the defender or apologizer.
BTW I voted today, early because I’ll be out of town the 7th. I didn’t vote for George W. Bush; funny, his name wasn’t on the ballot anywhere. Clearly the Diebold people have some explaining to do.
Regards,
Ric
Take some fucking nyquil for that cough, pablo. Questioning whether I’m being honest. fuck you. The intellectual honesty i’m questioning is the people in the thread who happily admit they don’t care what he intended simply because he’s an asshole and there’s political hay to be made. I’ve said all along that you’re free to assess all the evidence and believe that Kerry is a subhuman, lying turd. If you believe it, great. But calling me a tool or a liar for believing he meant to tell a lame Jay Leno joke as an applause line is just as stupid as Kerry calling you crazy for interpreting him as you did. Jesus. Is it not enough to hate Kerry?
What’s the point of any conversation or debate or commentary about Kerry then? Why bother writing a post criticizing Kerry’s apology when anything he says or does is per se wrong, unworthy of defense? Reminds me of Bush haters who jumped on a picture of Bush with a seemingly crooked collar. Wrote a big post about it: “Can’t he dress himself? LOL?” Then someone pointed out it was just a weird camera angle. Another lefty then replied, “Why would you defend this asshole?”
ss: chill
Let’s just keep it simple shall we? Pablo, Ric and I, in conjunction with our obvious utter derision for the man, don’t believe that he passes the intention “test.” That having been said, we shall now proceed to make political hay.
Let’s just agree to disagree on this one, little thing and stop calling each other “dishonest” or “anti-intellectual” or “filled with assery” or “tool” or any of the other names that we should be saving for the inevitable return of the chimp-anus.
We’re wasting our best insults and eating our own young. **Visualise Whirled Peas, Man!** (hee)
Peace? Come on, Pablo, Ric, B Moe, McGehee, BBH, Lee! Link hands with our brother ss and sing with me: Kerry sucks, me bros’, Kerry sucks. Oh, Lord, Kerry sucks…
Doesn’t everybody feel better now?
Lileks, who sees that as I do, labels this joke/no joke episode “the Great Polarization that has riven the blogosphere in twain.” My final points:
[url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkk1FtqML-8&mode=related&search=” target=”_blank”]
Here’s the video[/url] of the statement in context.
The offending statements, in the introduction to his speech to a partisan crowd, immediately follow a joke about how Bush used to live in Texas and now lives in a “state of denial…a state of deception. [laughter]” He ramps up to the joke/non-joke by suggesting an “effort to become smart.” If this were standard liberal garbage, he would not accuse kids ‘stuck’ in the military of not making an effort to “become smart,” because this would be blaming poor people for their lot in life. Rather, the liberal line against the military would be to rail about poor people’s lack of educational opportunities and lack of opportunities to succeed.
So to believe Kerry here meant to insult the troops, you have to believe:
1) in his introductory remarks, on the heels of a Bush joke, Kerry dropped a dead-serious malicious comment about poor ignorant people in the military, then then never mentioned the military again,
AND
2) Kerry, the most bleeding-heart, liberal dude in the Senate, thinks poor people who end up “stuck” in the military, or who fail to succeed, just haven’t applied themselves, or worked hard enough to “become smart” (a rather conservative, self-reliant, reap-what-you-sow kind of viewpoint)
AND
3) Kerry is politically nimble enough to come up with a “joke” excuse immediately after taking a major swipe at the military in a way that, if you think about it, sounds a lot like something Jay Leno would say.
So, whatever.
Trying that video link again.