1. Part of the reason is discussed here and here. I'm in the Republican closet in real life, and blogging politics is no longer satisfying--it's nerve-wracking. But I will try to get back on track.

2. Everybody always says whatever I think of to say, better and first. For example, the great, inestimable VDH pretty much demolishes the Kerry excuses, bringing up pretty much everything I would have thought of, a few points I never would have thought of.

Except:

A. "This is how they talk to each other." It's a phrase blogger Betsy Newmark noted a year ago, when a noted Democrat was caught saying foolish things. It's a phrase that has stuck with me. Once again we have a case of a liberal making a joke that he assumes everybody will get, because he assumes everybody thinks the same way he does. Their stunned surprise when they discover that not everybody does, is invariably much funnier. Even if we take him at his word that he was making a joke at Bush's expense (and I don't), the only thing this incident shows is that Kerry is so surrounded by yes-men, laughing at his "Bush is a dimwit" jokes, that he really believes the world all thinks the way he does. These kinds of things keep getting liberals in trouble, and at the root of it is a cocoon/echo-chamber lifestyle that always comes back to bite them. Remember this bit of left-wing bigotry? Or this charming comment? And let's not forget this knee-slapper. As I've said before, it's also another sign of the creeping Daily Show/Colbert Report-ization of Democratic rhetoric. All too often of late, progressives have gotten themselves in trouble trying to be "funny." The desire to get that laugh has overwhelmed any notion of being responsible.

And;

B. Bush may be "stuck in Iraq" but Kerry and Hillary and too many other prominent Democrats are still stuck in the '60s, and in Vietnam. If we DON'T take him at his word and assume he WAS, once again, expressing his haughty contempt for the great unwashed in America's military, it's because he still believes the talking point he was taught in 1967: that the military scoops up the bottom rung of the society and turns them into cannon fodder. That was, to an extent, true in the 1960s (though it was less true than many people think!). To the extent that it was true, it was one of the arguments for an all-volunteer military. Which we now have. And as a result, the statement is no longer substantially true, and to the extent that under-educated, underclass people DO get scooped into the military, the result is the betterment of their lives, not death in a rice paddy--or even by an roadside IED.
But that doesn't penetrate the cocoon/echo-chamber of people like Kerry. For him, nothing has changed, and a hoarde of underclass drafted Americans are still being fed into a meatgrinder. And that he would express that idea, with the assumption that nobody would challenge the
point, just demonstrates how out of touch he is.

And...

C. His "meltdown" of a response to the critics is a PRISTINE example of what I have called the "How dare you! Defense." It's the number one example of the laziness and intellectual bankruptcy of the progressive moment. About a decade ago they discovered that, rather than actually mount a convinving argument for your point, it's easier to simply declare yourself to be beyond criticism. The most recent inductee into the "How dare you?" Hall of Fame, apparently, is Michael J. Fox, so he was rhetorically trotted out during Kerry's tirade for good measure. The only surprise was that Kerry didn't bring up that other poster child for "moral authority," that poor Communist dupe Cindy Sheehan.
They believe in the HDYD, which also explains why THEY are always complaining that the RIGHT is trying silence THEM (funny how every single time they've wanted to complain about being silenced, they've been able to). It's because they can't conceive of any other tactic, and can't conceive of any other motive for criticizing somebody. The desperate and illogical "chickenhawk" argument (also trotted out by Kerry) is yet another variation of the HDYD, and taking the easy, lazy way out of an argument.
You could also see it in the code word "electability" that was slapped onto Kerry in 2004. The left mistakenly glommed onto him (though they secretly detested him) because they believed that, any time Bush challenged him, they would be able to gin up their best phony dudgeon and say, "GASP!! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION A VIETNAM VETERAN WOUNDED IN ACTION!!" and all opposition would drop away before them.
It didn't work (enough) with Kerry, and only the same people who were gulled into buying Kerry's moral authority are buying into Sheehan's. Why? Because people know that moral authority without maturity, consistency, wisdom--and self-awareness--is like a suit of armor with nothing inside it.