Didja hear the one about....
See, the thing about a joke is that it's supposed to be funny.
What John Kerry said the other day to college students about studying hard or they'll wind up stuck in Iraq http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLuMWiQ6r2o was not a joke, botched or otherwise. Kerry's claim that he was referring to Bush and his war-strategy crowd makes little sense when you see his prepared remarks. He went a little extemporaneous there and screwed up the lines, but you can't do that with a joke.
Still, if you squint a little you can see that the joke depends on the word "stuck'' and who it is who it is who's stuck.
But for Kerry to spin a joke to that extent renders it essentially useless.
If you assume that Kerry wasn't talking about the men and women in uniform, but rather the administration, the joke still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Nobody I know thinks that Rumsfeld and Cheney are stupid. Arrogant, stubborn and disastrously wrongheaded, maybe, but not dumb.
Actually, Kerry's response to the firestorm could well be described as arrogant, stubborn and disastrously wrongheaded.
Also, inflection, timing and attitude are what you need to sell a good joke. Kerry had none of that.
The man ought to apologize for his offense, and leave the joke-telling to somebody who has a clue about how to do it.
What John Kerry said the other day to college students about studying hard or they'll wind up stuck in Iraq http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLuMWiQ6r2o was not a joke, botched or otherwise. Kerry's claim that he was referring to Bush and his war-strategy crowd makes little sense when you see his prepared remarks. He went a little extemporaneous there and screwed up the lines, but you can't do that with a joke.
Still, if you squint a little you can see that the joke depends on the word "stuck'' and who it is who it is who's stuck.
But for Kerry to spin a joke to that extent renders it essentially useless.
If you assume that Kerry wasn't talking about the men and women in uniform, but rather the administration, the joke still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Nobody I know thinks that Rumsfeld and Cheney are stupid. Arrogant, stubborn and disastrously wrongheaded, maybe, but not dumb.
Actually, Kerry's response to the firestorm could well be described as arrogant, stubborn and disastrously wrongheaded.
Also, inflection, timing and attitude are what you need to sell a good joke. Kerry had none of that.
The man ought to apologize for his offense, and leave the joke-telling to somebody who has a clue about how to do it.
posted by Michael Riley at 9:48 AM
5 Comments:
Speak, Kerry, speak! You gave the GOP the election in 2004; with a little more work, you just might be able to pull it off again in '06.
I heard Kerry on the phone with Imus the next morning. Imus tried to get him to apologize, but Kerry wouldn't budge. Later in the day Kerry apologized.
It's hard to decide who is stupider -- Kerry or Bush. Maybe that comes with an Ivy League education.
is stupider really a word?
whose picture is next to stupider in the dictinary? kerry or bush? they could each wear t-shirts with arrows pointing to each other saying: "I'm more stupider"
I meant dictionary...I swear I'm not the stupidest!
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