Top 10 Alternative Punchlines to Kerry’s “Joke”

The patrician John F. Kerry tried this out for an opener to some college kids at a stump speech for the Democrat candidate for Governor of California, Phil Angel-somethingorother.

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well.

If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

Although it looks like a gratuitous slap at the “grunts”, those poorly educated infantrymen cannon fodder with few prospects, the junior Senator from Massachusetts saw fit to clarify his remarks slightly: Anyone who isn’t a rightwing nutjob [I’m paraphrasing only slightly] can plainly see that this was a poorly executed barb skewering our notoriously ignorant and obviously mentally deficient Commander in Chief, George “Warmonger” Bush.

In the tripartite interests of elevating debate, sharpening rhetoric, and bringing the funny, I’d thought I’d offer these alternative punchlines. Mr. Kerry sets it up:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well...

...If you don’t, you become a tool of a bellicose neocon cabal.

...If you don’t, your village will be missing their idiot

...If you don’t, you end up like Joe Lieberman.

...I pity da fool George Bush! Crazy redneck cracker. I pity da fool!

...If you don’t, you make Texas Tea instead of Lemonade when life hides your cheese.

...If you don’t, you choke on a pretzel. Who eats pretzels, anyway? The twisted! That’s who. And the Dutch. Pennsylvania Dutch. Who aren’t even really Dutch. That tells you something.

...If you don’t, you think Camus is a bovine dromedary. Like Bush. Get it? Bush is dumb.

...If you don’t, the terrorists of the world will not take you at your word and negotiate in good faith.

...If you don’t, you don’t realize that war is not the answer to the question of what is the answer of how does one pronounce a silent W? Not war! Bush eats boogers.

...And the only bush I trust is my own.

I offer these punchlines, humbly sure that they are funnier, more coherent, and less offensive to our brothers and sisters in uniform than the original. Help yourself, Senator!

Because, as they say: Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.