bobo on lehrer. pricelessly stupid.

bobo on lehrer, on kerry

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I mean, the whole thing is a soap opera. He flubbed the joke. It was widely misunderstood as an attack on the troops. The Republicans reacted...

JIM LEHRER: Was it intentionally misunderstood? I mean, the words...

DAVID BROOKS: I don't think so. No, Democrats ran away from him just as quickly as Republicans ran away from him. Everybody thought he'd offended the troops. It was not unheard of for John Kerry to say something untoward, and so the Republicans took advantage.

The real thing I fault Kerry for is the second day, when he could have said, "OK, I flubbed the joke, I'm sorry," which he said on the third day, the second day, he came back and decided he was going to be Howard Dean, he was going to be tough and fight. And he attacked Rush Limbaugh for being doughy and fatty, attacked Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, for being a stuffed suit, or something. He'd attacked despicable Republicans.

And it's the idea that people on both parties have that, when you're attacked, the way to rile up your base is to go viciously and attack everybody else. So he tried to be more vicious.

But, you know, this is just a soap opera. I think most of us are paying attention to the real issues. Let the bloggers have this one.

JIM LEHRER: So you would give a free ride, though? The president and everybody on the Republican side for jumping on Kerry for saying something he didn't really mean?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I mean, I would. The way this story was reported that first day -- and Democrats thought this, Republicans thought this. They thought he had attacked the education levels of the troops, which is bad and factually inaccurate. And then the second day, he didn't clear that up. The third day, it came out that he had just misread a joke.

pricelessly stupid.