Kerry incoherence alert

James Taranto:

How many feet can John Kerry fit in that mouth of his? Here he is on "Imus in the Morning" today:

Kerry: These guys have failed America. The people who owe an apology are people like Donald Rumsfeld, who didn't send enough troops, who didn't listen to the generals, who has made every mistake in the book. . . .

Imus: . . . Senator John McCain, he seems to think--he seems to agree with the Bush administration about your comments. And you know him, obviously, better than I do, but I know him pretty well. And he probably knows what you meant, too.

Kerry: I'm sorry that John McCain has said what he said. John McCain's been a friend for a long time. But I have to tell you, I think John McCain is wrong about this.

John McCain has been a cheerleader for a policy that is incorrect. John McCain says we ought to send another 100,000 troops over there. First of all, we don't have another 100,000 troops. Secondly, if you send them over there, it's going to do exactly what's already happened, which is attract more terrorists and more jihadists. Our own generals are telling us that it's the numbers of troops that are the problem.

So the administration didn't send enough troops and it sent too many troops? If only we had such a decisive, principled leader as president!

The man really is incoherent. As for the so called joke,

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Anyway, what joke did Kerry intend to make? A Kerry aide tells CNN:

Kerry was supposed to say, "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."

Ain't that a riot? Go ahead, wipe the coffee off your keyboard. We'll wait.

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That is not really a joke it is weak sarcasm. And, it does not get him off the hook for denigrating the troops since many of them support the mission and what we are doing to help the Iraqis. Kerry acts like President bush was the only person in this country that wanted to liberate Iraq and give its citizens an opportunity for democracy and freedom.

The condescension reeks from even his corrected version of his statement. It is the liberal disease. It also comes from spending too much time in the Daily Kos echo chamber where insults are substituted for reasoned arguments.