KERRY INSULTED THE GUARD? NOT SO FAST!

I guess these Kerry comments (scroll towards the bottom) must have been what Bush was referring to in the interview about "denigrating the Guard". But I think that Bush's assertion that Kerry was denigrating it requires a creative interpretation of the statement. The quote was:

"I would defend the President's choice with respect to going into the Guard," Kerry told Fox News. "I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard."

Here are the two things that Bush and the right are doing to this quote:

1) They're interpreting "going into the National Guard" as a sub-category of "avoiding the draft".

2) The other thing his apologists are doing is to remove the initial sentence of the quote("I would defend the President's choice with respect to going into the guard"), such as in this editorial from the Washington Moonie Times, this piece from conservative columnist Frank Savalto, and this piece from NewsMax. That's a good trick there. Context, assholes.

UPDATE: DeLong points out that by the right's standards, Colin Powell falls under the category of Guard-hating Guard-hater.