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Originally Posted by innerSpaceman
So, I hereby revise my earlier opinion. I was misinformed and led to believe Kerry was taking about No Child Left Behind. Um, he wasn't. From what I've read of the more complete remarks, he was talking about George W. Bush, and it was Bush who is "stuck in Iraq" - a phrase which applies to soldiers, true ... but is perfectly applicable to the President of the U.S.
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Yes, that I believe is true. Basically, there are 3 things going on.
1) He was talking about Bush and the speech was written to specifically mention Bush in that line, he screwed it up
2) The way he read it, it COULD reasonably have been interpreted as "If you fail at school, you'll end up in the military." That's been what I've been talking to, choosing to ignore the manufactured outrage and discus what I found to be an interesting side topic unintentially breached by the misstatement. Even assuming he did really mean (or Freudianly mean) it as spoken, to me that's the "worst" interpretation of the joke. That got me thinking of No Child Left Behind and how it was tailored to steer more and more youth towards military service.
3) Opponents of Kerry took a false logical leap and decided that "Bad students end up in the military" is the same as "Everyone in the military is uneducated/stupid." Thus, outrage.
So, there you have it.