The botched joke was pretty clearly not about the troops, but about the President.  Still bad judgment and poor taste on Kerry's part, but not the insult the GOP's making it out to be. 

No matter—Kerry is fair game, and when he says something stupid—and he does almost as often as Bush—he deserves to be chided by his friends and derided by his foes, just like Bush does—although we've been conditioned to think that to do so with Bush is either immoral or immaterial at this point.  

But while Kerry should be held to task for adolescent insults (Kerry's stupid comment is all the more pathetic for being about how stupid he thinks someone else is), his remark says nothing about the Democrats in general. 

Of course, the media's all a-tingle over the "controversial comment," and the talking heads insist it will influence the outcome of midterm elections.  If it does it will be only very, very marginally, and largely because the media has lent the incident way more importance than it should have.  Again, I think Kerry deserves to be chided and derided, but it's Kerry's foot in Kerry's mouth, and nothing more.

Still, if there's one good thing that could come out of all of this it would be the sinking of any hope Kerry has of making a comeback in '08.  I think this is too much to hope for, though.  My feeling is that we will have to endure another Kerry bid for the nomination.  It's tedious, because it's so obvious his moment is past. 

He was a poor candidate the first time around, nominated by his party as a symbolic gesture in a half-hearted effort to unseat an incumbent.  Half-hearted because the Democrats were already looking ahead to '08 by which time, they figured, the GOP will have imploded, leaving the field open for Democratic successes across the board. 

They chose Kerry in '04 because their strategy was failure.  Apparently he didn't get the memo.