More “dog bites man” news: Kerry issues the same old typical-liberal non-apology “apology” for his revealing Freudian slip. Charles ain’t buying it:

Quite a few people seem willing to accept this at face value, and believe that Kerry really didn’t mean any insult to the troops—that he misspoke. Or botched a joke. Or something.

But over here in the subterranean chamber beneath Denver Airport, my Acme BS Detector is going insane. I haven’t seen readings like this since Rathergate.

I don’t believe this for one nanosecond. Kerry was preaching to the choir, playing to a very definite anti-military sentiment that absolutely does exist among the angry left-wing nut jobs who seem to be controlling the Democrat base, and he just happened to get caught this time. His latest statement doesn’t exist in a vacuum, as many have pointed out; Kerry has a long history of saying outrageous things about US soldiers.

And neither is NZ:

The key phrase we’re looking for here is “never again”. If people like Kerry — and indeed Kerry himself — had not been responsible for destroying the morale and reputation of the American military after Vietnam, we wouldn’t have to be sensitive to jokes like his failed one. But they did, and we do, because we absolutely cannot allow what happened to the soldiers of that era to begin happening to those of ours.

And the source here matters. If John McCain had made Kerry’s remarks, we’d be astounded, but McCain’s history would argue in his favor and we’d grant him the benefit of the doubt. But Kerry’s history does the opposite: his past exploits and efforts to drag the reputation of American soldiers through the mud are absolutely relevant and mean he doesn’t get to pretend that nobody could ever think he’d say something denigrating about the military. If you’ve never been known to raise your hand in anger towards a woman, you can crack a joke about beating your wife and get away with it (even if you shouldn’t). But if you’ve got a history of beating your wife, you don’t get to make jokes about beating your wife without bringing the full weight of society’s suspicion and opprobrium down on you.

She’s absolutely correct. The Left/lib/Dem/Loon Axis have spent decades establishing their anti-soldier and anti-American bona fides, and now that the political bill for that has come due, they don’t think they ought to have to pay it, and are trying to slip out a rear window by rewriting history. That rewriting project started a while back, and they’ve had some small success, at least among the vanishingly small number of reasonable liberals still clinging to the Democrat Party for some reason. Example: Just by mentioning the fact that returning Vietnam-era (and GWI too) soldiers were spat upon by antiwar libs at airports, you’ll always get angry denials that it ever happened from people who read a bullshit book by some history-whitewasher; they’ll even try to deny that it ever happened when directly confronted by someone with personal experience, as has happened here once or twice.

But most of us know the truth; we’ve seen the placards and signs of soldier-hating Leftards at their protest carnivals; we’ve seen the vile political cartoons drawn by the “protected class” of liberal artists; we’ve seen the liberal op-ed writers barely deigning to conceal their contempt for our murdering thug torturers, and have observed their occasional crocodile tears over those poor, dumb, undereducated victims that somehow wind up duped into the military. Those forced tears are nothing more than a politically-sanctioned necessity, an attempt to find some hook on which they can hang at least a niggling amount of sympathy — sympathy intended to temper their elitist disdain for those charged with the difficult job of defending their own worthless, cowardly, and presumptuously ungrateful asses.

So, joke or not, Kerry’s bonehead blunder was indeed representative of a larger truth, one which the Dems are desperately trying to sweep under the rug. And joke or not, it was a statement Kerry is in no way morally qualified to make.

Like the Bear says: never again, liberals. We’re not going to give you one inch of slack on this, now or any other time. You don’t say one damned word about the American military that those of us who are truly proud of and grateful to them won’t parse to a hair’s breadth and analyze for ourselves. Until the debt you incurred by your own words and deeds is paid in full, you’re going to be under a very precise microscope. You got away with your slanderous disrespect once; you won’t now. Better step light, punks.

Update! Anybody who thinks Kerry’s getting a raw deal on this one ought to pay more attention; it seems that Kerry’s soldier-scorning left-wing constituency didn’t have the slightest trouble understanding his unfunny little “joke.” Just check here if you don’t believe it. And Allahpundit posts this gem of a Photoshop from Jeff Farmer:

Updated update! Ace:

Clearly this idea that our military is made up chiefly of uneducated dolts is anathema to John Kerry and the left.

Why, they’d never say such things!

Except, of course, when they actually are saying them, day in, day out.

And:

He said what he said. According to Kerry’s “written version” of the speech, he only managed to miss 12 or so words that would have made the reference directlly applicable to Bush.

One word? Maybe.

The guy missed a dozen frickin’ words.

And yet conservatives are determined to somehow find evidence he didn’t mean to say what he clearly did say, and what all of his fellow leftists say, and which he has never criticized his fellow leftists for saying.

I understand bending over backwards to give an opponent the benefit of the doubt.

I draw the line at bending over forwards, however.

A. Fuggin’. Men.