Shut Up, John Kerry

So I have no problem believing that when John Kerry told college students to study hard so that they wouldn't end up getting stuck in Iraq that he meant they should study harder than Bush and his administration so that they wouldn't have bad strategies for bad wars like Iraq. I believe him when he says he wasn't telling the students, "Study hard or you'll end up being combat soldiers." He's released the text of his speech, which supports his version of the story. It sounds like the kind of joke he would tell. In fact, it sounds like the sort of joke that most Democrats (these days) would tell--it's a vaguely funny attack on Bush's intellectual laziness.

But I also don't care that he didn't mean to say what Bush, Cheney, and Republican operatives say that he said. I'm just tired of him staying dumb crap and alienating voters during important elections. He had all of 2004 to do that. It should be out of his system by now.

After Al Gore botched a Presidential election, he went on to do something useful, productive, and urgent. John Kerry should do that. Or just keep quiet for a while.