“Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke, and he botched it up,” Vice President Dick Cheney said in remarks prepared for a campaign appearance in Montana. “I guess we didn’t get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it.”

That is nothing short of precious…

Like you I find myself in sort of a quandry. I feel alienated by mainstream democrats. The message I get from the dems is that Christians believe in fairy tails and are all Dobson clones. Add to that complete support for killing truly innocent babies under most any circumstance while moralizing about torture and the like (what total hipocracy). And then there’s demonizing people who work hard to be successful. Then environmental extremism without considering anything else. Then there’s the socialist tilt - income redistribution. Then pandering to minorities instead of insisting on responsible behavior. And worst of all - staying stuck in the sixties peace love mentality as if the whole world hasn’t changed in 40 years. I say grow up and move on!

I just don’t fit in. Repubs aren’t a whole lot better either. Many so-called centrists seem to me to be more of the same old democrats. I see that tendency here which is why I comment once in a while - to add a diverse viewpoint.

I wish the dems or at least the “centrists” would be less close-minded. The blogs I read that I feel most connected to are Kristen Powers, the Anchoress and LaShawn Barber. Those ladies have class and integrity that is uncommon in today’s political climate.

Sorry if I offended you with my previous comment. I can’t say that I disagree much with your response to it.

In my Conservative book God comes first and then Country. Our party is the last and it is the first to go especially when that party has morphed and shown over and over to be anathema to conservative beliefs. When and if our party ever comes to its senses the Republican party will have my support and that of thousands of other disillusioned conservatives.

We are not in 2004 but in 2006. This cycle Americans are yearning for accountability and the noise machine rethoric is not going to work, if we do not let it. If we are progressives, let us not lose our perspective. If republicans are using this distraction to at least wake up their base, let us do the same. We are already ahead. Let us use president Bush’s pathetic effort to make this a Bush vs Kerry fight again, as another instance, by the scared Republicans, to maintain raw power for its own sake, but not to govern in any way, shape or form.

Let this be another inspiration to go vote in droves, in a tsunami of democrats and progressives that will finally send these incompetents back home.

We should not forget that the king has no clothes, and that the chest thumping Republicans are deep down just paper tigers,

“You know, educationâ€â€?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.â€Â?

He is akwardly saying that Bush’s lack of intelligence has got us stuck in Iraq. Locate the video of the speech which I saw on Hardball and the meaning of his words become more apparent. He’s attempting to play on the Liberal meme that Republicans are dumb.

However, he has really offended many in the military and their families. For that he should give a REAL apology.

It is funny that by describing the so called contempt of the common man by John Kerry, you are just describing the same contempt shown us by this brand of Republicans for the past six years. Republicans do want to see the majority of American workers as simpletons to vote or as evil if they dare question. By small margins they have been succesful for 5 years.

| “… Kerry cannot conceive how people could rationally choose to be different from himself and his supporters. I mean, clearly, the only reason someone would go into the military is is because they were too stupid to do anything else or know better (or, I guess, to jumpstart a political career).”

Here again just insert the Repubs for Kerry for your sentence to apply equally for Republicans.

There may be many reasons for people to volunteer for the military; being stupid is not one of them. Whatever the reason, war soon chastens most of them into seeing both sides an equation.

The most strident politicians and keyboarders are those who have never seen battle, never intend to see it, and are happy with others, which you describe as “stupid”, doing the fighting and the dying.

Many are also the first to criticize, belittle, and toss on the wayside our soldiers once they have served their purpose as cannon fodder, or as you did for being so “stupid” to go in the first place.

Don’t question his patriotism.

I know you’re being sarcastic, but this has less to do with patriotism and more to do with where Kerry sees himself in the world. And I’d like to see Kerry in a place where he’s long forgotten.

Yes, he needs to shut up and go away.