A commenter from my previous post on this matter made the point that the military is one of few options for people who cannot afford to continue their education. I don’t disagree and feel strongly that the military, with the advanced training one can receive, is a very good way to go. In fact, I met with an Army recruiter my senior year of high school and was almost 50-50 on the matter. I went to college instead, but never finished my degree. Now I look back and wonder what my life would have been like had I enlisted, if I would have had a degree as a result of doing a stint. Getting a degree in the army was how they were selling it back then. Be all you can be.
Nevertheless, as the link to hughhewitt.com shows, there are a lot of the other group in the armed forces as well, those who went to college and THEN decided to serve their country.

When Kerry says that he was making a joke at Bush’s expense, I believe him. Even Kerry isn’t so stupid as to deliberately shot himself in the foot as he did Monday night. Sometimes things get lost in translation when travelling from the brain to the mouth. Heaven knows I’ve made some really stupid and unintended statements that sounded better in my head. All of that is fine as far as it goes.

What isn’t fine is the damage control that has followed and the continuous bashing of the Republicans for taking Kerry to task for what he SAID, not for what he MEANT. Because what he SAID was despicable and inexcusable, pure and simple. And what Kerry should have done immediately afterward was to sincerely apologize to the men and women in our armed forces, and their families and stated what was in his prepared statement, instead of lashing out at people for being unable to read his mind. It certainly would not have made his actual joke any funnier or true, but it would have been par for the course with him. And Kerry wouldn’t be the big donkey with the target on his back.

Of course, the ‘apology’ Kerry offered up is just pathetic. No one of intelligence higher than my dog heard a ‘joke’. And the fact that every other democrat in the free world has to explain that it was, in fact, a joke just shows how completely morally corrupt the democrats are. Why would anyone defend such a statement? Here’s a newsflash for those of you too clueless to figure it out, if you have to explain that it’s a joke, it’s not a joke.

Further, if in fact Kerry was trying to make the joke at Bush’s expense, as he claims, why didn’t he reference Bush in ANY way in his words? Usually when you try to make such a joke, you say something oblique that references the person you’re trying to slam and that people hearing can reasonably infer was about that person.

This is a Freudian slip, pure and simple. Kerry let his true feelings about the military slip out yet again and doesn’t want to admit it. So Kerry continues to dig his hole deeper by refusing to apologise and Mark Halperin, presumably a pretty smart guy, otherwise he wouldn’t be head of a major news organization, further slams the military. The Karmic Boomerang, which so far has missed Mr. Kerry, looks poised to whack him on the head.

What a sad state of affairs. Do you really want these people running the country come November 8th?

Update: Shannon Love over at Chicago Boyz says it better.

The combination of red, white, and blue colors put together in such a way to produce Old Glory is a symbol of the USA. The actual medium on which the symbol is placed is transient. If the medium is destroyed, either by accident or deliberate action, the symbol doesn’t suddenly cease to exist and to suggest otherwise is stupid.

If that weren’t enough to give one pause, there’s the whole Freedom of Speech thing, too.

Nevertheless, logic and reason is trampled underfoot by such rhetoric as this:

“Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center,” said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. “Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.”

Knowing that guy is from California makes me glad I don’t live there anymore.

According to Harry Reid’s own published statements, the president is a liar and a loser, Senate majority leader Bill Frist is an amateur and Alan Greenspan is a political hack. All of this is straight from the mouth of the Dems Senate leader. That heated up rhetoric plays very well to the far left, but does little for Reid and the rest of the Democrats as they attempt to hold on and continue to block some of the president’s judicial nominees from receiving a vote in the full U.S. Senate.

One wonders how the dems can expect any one to respect them, their leadership, and their position with leaders like Harry Reid, who doesn’t show respect to his opposition, regardless of what he may think of the President or Alan Greenspan, or any other person with whom he disagrees. Political discourse is hitting all time lows in this country and it’s precisely because of men like Mr. Reid.

Into this quagmire enters one Evan Kendrick, a freshman congressman from a small Colorado district. He made his wealth in construction all over Southwest Asia several years ago, before a tragic accident at one site killed his entire staff and their families. He knew the accident was no accident, but the act of one man, the Madhi, a rich secular Arab who was attempting to take over the lucrative construction contracts from foreigners such as Kendrick so that the Arab world would be controlled by Arabs.

Kendrick knows that the terrorists are being funded by the Mahdi and the embassy incident is just another attempt at getting Americans and all other foreigners out of the Arab world. Kendrick contacts the spooks in the State department and convinces them to drop him into the middle of this mess and get the Mahdi. After much action, he succeeds with the help of his older, wiser Jewish partner and a strike team from the Mossad, Israel’s secret service.

Kendrick did this insane thing on condition of anonimity. He did not want anyone to know that he did what he did, because he wanted to return to that part of the world and rebuild is business.

A year later, the facts of the Oman incident are blasted all over the news. Kendrick, against his express wishes, become a national hero. And a target for the very same terrorists he infiltrated. It turns out that he’s being ‘programmed’ by a shadowy group of very rich individuals who manipulate national and international events behind the scenes.

This shadow group, Inver Brass, has recognised a fascist, war-mongering group of people around the current Vice-President, who, if left unchecked, could gain too much power and eventual control the entire government. Inver Brass sees idealistic, individualist Kendrick as their antidote to the group around the vp and are doing everything they can to put him on the ticket as the vp nomination in the following year’s presidential election.

All of this is a long winded way for me to say that I find the oddest parallels at the oddest time. No sooner do I finish a book about secret societies controlling events, do I read something like this story in Harper’s. The rational side in my wants to be skeptical about this kind of stuff, that it’s all just the product of a rich imagination, but I just can’t.