By now I’m sure you’ve all heard John Kerry’s controversial comments from a political rally he attended yesterday at Pasadena City College:

“…You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Senator Kerry now says it was was a ‘botched joke’ originally intended to insult the President’s intellect, not to demean the intelligence of those who have volunteered to put their lives on the line fighting for the cause of freedom in Iraq. Yeah, John, pretty funny – you really know how to set up and tell a knee-slapper. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk – see ya at the Improv.

…And the fact that Kerry is now attempting to further defend himself by dusting off the same tired old allies he dragged out when the Swift Boat Veterans called him out during the 2004 campaign (BTW, signed that SF 180 form yet, Senator? Hmmm, I didn’t think so) tells you just how politically tone-deaf the guy really is. Deep hole, meet shovel.

I mean, for someone who has held the office of U.S. Senator as long as Kerry has, is there anyone – ANYONE – who has worse political instincts in the world? Any politician with ANY kind of political smarts one week before a crucial mid-term election would understand the need to suck it up for the good of his party, turn on the damage control machine, and ‘fess up, if only because it’s the right thing to do. But John Kerry can’t – you see, he’s either too arrogant, too lazy after years of easy senatorial re-election campaigns, or too angry and bitter at losing the 2004 Presidential election that he either can’t or won’t. And that’s because he knows he screwed up. Again.

1) Let’s say what happened was, in fact, a ‘botched joke’. How politically astute is it to insult the Commander-in-Chief’s intellect at the expense of those brave men and women who are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families back home? The answer: It ain’t.

2) Again, let’s keep with the ‘botched joke’ theme. Why not just come out before every and any microphone you can find (like that CNN microphone with lips firmly implanted upon your backside) and just say something to the effect that, you tried to tell a joke off the cuff, it was a joke that was in poor taste and one that should never have been attempted, and that you earnestly and sincerely regret any perceived demeaning or insult to any member of the armed forces and their families, present or past. The answer: Because you meant what you said, and said what you meant. And you’re too arrogant and politically clueless to lower yourself to such a thing.

‘Botched joke’ or not, even the most amateur pop psychologist will tell you that people will say – whether they mean to or not – what they’re really thinking subconciously. This was no attempt to insult the President, this was Senator John Kerry – sore loser, bitter politician, loather of the military (who can forget his accusing American soldiers of breaking into Iraqi homes in the middle of the night and “terrorizing kids and children”) saying what’s REALLY on his mind. And got caught doing it.

Were I were a Democratic candidate in a nail-biter of an election campaign tonight, I’d be pretty freakin’ PO’d. But you know what? Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) doesn’t care about you, your campaign, or anyone or anything, for that matter, except himself. And he’s too angry and bitter about his own political failure in 2004 that he can’t see the forest through the trees. What an a$$. Maybe Karl Rove is a genius, after all…

Mark my words, the lines between the offices of Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are burning red-hot tonight, and sometime in the next day or so, the esteemed senator from Massachusetts will be out before the assembled multitudes doing his mea culpas bit. But it’ll be too late then, because it’s already too late now. The damage has been done. Nice going, Senator.