John Kerry has made himself the gift that keeps on giving. After supposedly botching a joke about President Bush and telling a college audience that a lack of education and hard work would get them "stuck in Iraq", he took criticism from Republicans and some Demicrats for two days. He finally apologized for both screwing up the joke and the fact that no one understood his genius, and the controversy finally started to recede. However, Kerry -- who has never learned the First Rule Of Holes -- decided to keep right on digging yesterday by posting a Seattle newspaper's editorial on his campaign web site that says he was right in either interpretation:

Republicans evidenced their election desperation by braying about an offhand comment that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., made at a California college rally.

"Education" Kerry said "-- if you make the most of it and you study hard and 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."

Was Kerry making fun of the president, or warning students against the pitfalls awaiting the undereducated in general?

It doesn't matter. Kerry was right either way.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer then contradicts itself by claiming that Kerry didn't call the troops "stupid", which is true; he implied that they were lazy and uneducated, which is technically not identical. If the P-I believes that Kerry was "right either way", and was warning students about the consequences of a poor education, then they're saying that lazy and uneducated people end up in the military. In fact, they say it outright:

Although there are plenty of well-educated people in our armed forces -- Kerry was one of them -- military service has long been an opportunity employer for those with less education and fewer skills than they need to work in the private sector. Indeed, the military sells itself as a place to garner skills and to help pay for higher education.

And wars, including this one, are often fought by those less privileged -- albeit no less smart -- than the sons and daughters of those who lead us into them.

Actually, this proves what happens when people lack a real education, one in which research and fact-finding have been subsumed to the advancement of cliches and unsupported assumptions. The military, as the Heritage Foundation pointed out in its extensive research, has a higher proportion of educated people than the general civilian population, especially in the officer corps. The P-I editorial board obviously doesn't do its homework either, which makes this a laughable entry in the debate.

But all this is separate from the political decision to put this on the Kerry website after insisting that he didn't intend on casting aspersions on the intellectual capacity of the troops. If he really didn't mean to call them lazy and uneducated, then why did he go out of his way to host an editorial on his site that does exactly that?

UPDATE: Here's another priceless picture, courtesy of Blackfive (h/t CQ reader Stoo):

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» He meant exactly what he said from Bill's Bites
(Continued; See previous)Kerry’s website defends Kerry’s “joke”; Update: with videoBryan Preston Why does johnkerry.com sport a link to the following Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial?“Education” Kerry said “– if you make the most of... [Read More]

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Tracked on November 4, 2006 1:15 PM