Kerry part 2

[Don Corleone]

What part did you miss.......
what he said was the US army is full of idiots.
.....so which part of the speech contained those words to paraphrase ?

"If you work hard in school, be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you wind up stuck in Iraq".

One possible interpretation of that, clearly, is that Kerry was speaking to the students. In this interpretation, Kerry is implying that those in the military didn't work hard in school or weren't smart. It is this interpretation that Big Tex was summarizing with "he said the US army is full of idiots".

I agree that the joke called for a dig at Bush, and him not being very bright and dragging us into Iraq, but that's hardly the only reasonable conclusion. Which meaning you seized upon will color how you paraphrase the joke.

[Tribesman]

In addition to what Don posted I think its instructive to know the Right's distain for Kerry predates the rise of Bush by decades. The derision traces back to Kerry's Vietnam Era testimony before Congress (1971) where he charged U.S. Military war atrocities as the norm and aligned himself with the Winter Solider Investigation (1972). Kerry's stance was(is) taken as agenda ridden, disingenuous, and contributing to a domestic hostility toward the war that would ultimately lead to defeat.

But atrocities as described were the norm , it was a very messy conflict .
What ultimately led to defeat is almost identical to the current conflict , domestic hostility is only one aspect of it .

[Pindar]

But atrocities as described were the norm...

That is a controversial stance that does not appear to have any supporting data. As I recall, studies that have gone in for such comparisons found less incidence than in say WWII. Regardless, Kerry's testimonial to such (comparing the U.S. Military's behavior to the Hordes of Ghengis Khan etc.) is one of the reasons he is despised by the Right.