Hilarious.

This one is going to make to famous or infamous at least.

Too funny....

Jen, Shannon...this is what happens when my workload drops off: too much time on my hands! Thanks for the comments and the links...

Hilarious! I might have to steal this. Giving credit of course...

Christopher, feel free to "steal" away...that's why I put the tiny URL at the bottom.

Excellent! I'm emailing NRO - maybe they'll link to this!

ROFLMBO!!! Best. Graphic. Ever!

So what was the spelling error? You have to know you just can't leave us hanging like that. ;)

Bill, Jinx...thanks for the kind words.

Jinx, I plead the 5th. But I will say this: any poker player worth his salt wouldn't have made the same mistake!

Dude, you are so linked.

Robert, I'll see your link and raise you a blogroll! ;-)

Nice blog, amigo.

Eric, I tipped FrankJ at IMAO to it. Very funny.

So, you're the one to whom I need to send the bill for the extra bandwidth usage this month? ;-)

Seriously, though, thanks for the referral. That's heady company...

Wow! I'm going to try for Rakishly Nonchalant myself today. I wonder if the dolts at the grocery store will notice how very Kerry I am! Of course if there is a long line at the deli, I may become Guardedly Peevish!

Roxy, I must respectfully advise you against trying to use this system unless you're married to a billionaire heiress.

This is a great early warning system. Correct your misspelled word (wand)to (warn) in case you become famous!!!

Well, Bikermommy, I actually meant to use "wand." It's a reference to the portable metal detectors used at airports, courthouses, etc.

As for being famous, I hear that's not all it's cracked up to be. I'll settle for a few extra visits to this humble blog! ;-)

wand: wave the thing around like they do at the airports ... get it?

NOW you tell me! I've never been spit on so much in my life! And I have children! Stupid peasants.

Roxy, if you have children, then you also have a built-in method of reprisal...especially at the grocery store. Think about it.

Either that, or find a billionaire heiress to do your bidding.

I'll see your blogroll and raise you two links!

Great idea, I'm planning to wand the kitchen staff daily from now on.

Eric

If you're going to bash Kerry for something, can't you find something that can distinguish him a little more than that?

Pulled from various sources around the web:

Here's a two-year-old comment from "retired General Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser for Bush's father."

"There is going to be no peace treaty on the battleship Missouri in the war on terrorism, but we can break its back so that it is a horrible nuisance and not a paralysing influence on our societies," Scowcroft told the US Institute of Peace.

"These fights that we are having against Mugtada militia [in Iraq] are not stretching us thin at all. They are pretty much street thugs with weapons. They don't present much of a military threat. They're a nuisance. They're a harassment. And sadly, as you can imagine with street thugs with weapons, sometimes they kill and wound our soldiers. But in engagement after engagement, they have not been able to stand and fight."

ballot box Politics and policy.

Nuisance Nuance
Bush was for reducing terrorism to a nuisance before he was against it.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004, at 4:14 AM PT

"Now just this weekend, Sen. Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to a 'nuisance'—(laughter)—and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling. (Booo!) Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying the terrorist networks, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world."

—President Bush, Victory 2004 Rally, Morrison, Colo., Oct. 11, 2004

"Nor can we think of our goal in this war in the way Sen. Kerry described it yesterday in the New York Times. 'We have to get back to the place,' he said, where terrorism is 'a nuisance.' ... This is naive and dangerous."

—Vice President Cheney, Victory 2004 Rally, Batavia, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2004

"Now Kerry says we have to get back to the place where terrorists are a nuisance like gambling and prostitution; we're never going to end them. Terrorism—a nuisance? How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?"

—Bush-Cheney television ad, Oct. 10, 2004

"These fights that we are having against Mugtada militia [in Iraq] are not stretching us thin at all. They are pretty much street thugs with weapons. They don't present much of a military threat. They're a nuisance. They're a harassment. And sadly, as you can imagine with street thugs with weapons, sometimes they kill and wound our soldiers. But in engagement after engagement, they have not been able to stand and fight."
—Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Coalition, [Iraq] Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing, May 17, 2004

"The Taliban can kill innocent civilians in small numbers, and be a nuisance, and be a distraction, but it cannot and will not be allowed to be a force, a political force in Afghanistan."
—Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman, Department of State, New York, N.Y., Jan. 14, 2004

"We have a number of explosions that happen every other night. I mean, these are tactically insignificant mortar rounds being fired. We are not aware of any casualties, either civilian or military, that accompanied that. There was no attack on any coalition facility that we're aware of. These were nuisance bombings. They're clearly trying to go make a statement, a spectacular statement, but militarily, tactically insignificant."
—Kimmitt, CPA Briefing, Nov. 17, 2003

"Chemical and biological weapons aren't going to affect the operational outcome on the battlefield, and I think the Iraqis know that. They can be a terror weapon, they can be a nuisance, they can slow certain elements, but they would never—they never had the potential to change the operational outcome, to stop the movement of forces."
—Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations, Department of Defense News Briefing, April 4, 2003

Plus, your "in context" quote may be most of the magazine article, but it's not the full text of Kerry's quote.

Brian, check the category...then go look for your sense of humor.

same idea

http://www.simsadler.com/

Sense of humor on this? It's just that George Bush has created a huge mess...and that isn't very funny.

Phrases like, "squandered the good will of the people of the world", and "invaded the wrong country" come to mind.

As the resident of London which suffered "nuisance terrorism" for decades at the hands of the (partially US funded, funny how things change, eh?) IRA, this doesn't seem like a risible statement at all. In London, the IRA used to occasionally bomb pubs, tube stations, etc. but most people went about their daily lives giving it little thought. Which is, err exactly what Kerry is saying. But shoot, the US has nothing to learn from the rest of the world, right?

Keith, if the lesson is learning to be fatalistically complacent while allowing murdering thugs to go about their daily business, then, no...we're not interested.

And I don't believe most Brits are either.

Perfect, passed this along to all of my "HUTA" Lib friends.

Eric, that sounds like a soundbite straight from GW himself, although he might struggle with the "complacency" part. To me Kerry's words seem like a perfectly commonsense statement, as opposed to the "end of days" rhetoric favoured by America's current dear leader. Any (mis)interpretation you make this statement is entirely your own.

Also, you talk about "most Brits": be careful not to confuse Blair's views with those of the electorate. He's way out on a limb on this one.

Funny stuff. Much funnier than Bush & co's constant fear mongering alert system. Since it would never happen and all.

Finally...a Dem (or am I reading too much into your comment?) with a sense of humor! You've made my day. ;-)

First, love the graphic. Second, Brian needs to get a life. Third, for anyone who thinks we "squandered" the goodwill of the world, you need to read this interview http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15044

It should give people a lot of perspective on the "goodwill" from our French, German, and Arab friends.

I can't believe that my Republican friends would be so simple-minded to believe the spin that's put on this.

I don't see how Bush supporters can see the world in a black/white view with no gray area. That frightens me.

I'm not going to say what Kerry was trying to say, because I can't read the man's mind, but here's how I interpreted it. We can't "win" a war on terrorism, just like we can't "win" a war on drugs. We can't "win" a war on prostitution. There's no endgame for any of those. As soon as you get rid of all the hookers or drug dealers, another one will pop up. As soon as you get rid of all the terrorists, another one will pop up. How do you win the war on terror? What's the goal? What's the victory condition?

Even the president said we can't "win" the war on terror (well, he did before he flip-flopped the very next day and said we were winning and would win the war on terror). But I think Kerry was implying that he wants to get terrorism down to a level where it doesn't require our entire military force, where our police can do other things than just look for "suspicious behavior". Where we can actually feel reasonably safe again.

Who's to say that some mafia guy won't come demand protection money from you tomorrow? But it probably won't happen, because we've got organized crime reasonably under control in this country.

I say what has this president done to make us safer besides Afghanistan (didn't finish the job there) and taking out some two-bit bully?

Greg, just to show you that I'm not really Satan, I'm going to agree with you on one point. I agree that we're hammering Kerry about a statement that he probably really didn't mean in the way we're parodying him. That's the problem with soundbites, even (especially?) when they're in print. I don't believe that Kerry really puts terrorism in any form into the category of nuisance, like a pesky mosquito.

At the same time, that doesn't give him a free pass in terms of political satire. He said the words, and he has to live with them. Such is the unfairness of the game we play, and the rules apply to all. And that's why this post isn't in the category of "Deathly Serious Observations Requiring Special Gravitas Just To Read, Let Alone Comment On."

However, that's about all I agree with you on, as far as your other comments are concerned. But there really are better forums for political dialog than this blog and this post. Trust me on this.

Howdy,I just stumbled into this lovely patch of Tejas and can't help but comment. Being a political creature and an obsessive news reader, I find the left's inability to accept reality hilarious. Having served in U.S. Army for several years, in Combat Arms not as a clerk or beancounter, I understand the complexities of insurgency/counterinsurg. operations. A fact that those on the left and right outside of the military do not. As for Sen. Kerry, I have known since '85 that this man had no intent to protect and serve our country. Having been raised in the "evil military" culture, I have been aware of Lt. Kerry's multiple acts of treason against this country since the age of 10, when I saw my Aunt Helen crying over the coffin of a husband she had not seen since 1965. His remains were returned after his death in Hanoi. His crime was refusal to sign a confession, this after Lt.Kerry made his famous "war crimes" confession in front of the Senate. So DON'T tell me how he will defend America from anything,anybody, or any threat other than our own freedom. Love the site, Bro. Keep it going on and spread the good word!!!!!

2Hotel9, thanks for the kind words...feel free to drop in anytime, amigo!

PLEASE POST THE ENTIRE QUOTE NOT JUST THE MAGAZINE ARTICLE!

Any objective person would know Kerry said we will continue to fight terrorism until it is no longer a serious threat to our society. However, the so called "liberal" media (run by Corporate America) tows the Bush line and perpetuates the lie. What is digusting is that Bush approved this lie in his Advertising.

In other words, as Bush said during the Convention "we can't win a war on terror". He was right but then he later flip flopped and said we can win. But in the same context as a "war on drugs" there will always be terrorism, as Kerry suggests, all we can do is make our world safer. But terrorism will never completely go away just as murder, rape, abuse, drugs, theft, prostitution will never go away.

Why don't we all give fact checking and intellectualism a try over the simple mindedness, distortion and lies of Bush, Rove and Cheney.

PLEASE POST THE ENTIRE QUOTE NOT JUST THE MAGAZINE ARTICLE!

What does this look like, a news clipping service? Go get your own quote. You're just lucky I've even linked back to the New York Times...I prefer not to sully the pristine pages of this blog in that way.

...so called "liberal" media...

Careful, pard; it's a windy day in west Texas and I think there's a tinfoil hat blowing around here with your name on it.

Why don't we all give fact checking and intellectualism a try over the simple mindedness, distortion and lies...

Be careful what you wish for...

RIDICULOUS !!!!

Vote KERRY