Not sure if he read my column last week about Rush Limbaugh’s miscalculated attack on Michael J. Fox, but it seems John Kerry was in a hurry to prove that Republicans aren’t the only ones capable of saying stupid things.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the past week, and this is the first newspaper you read after crawling out from underneath, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was speaking to a group of college students at a rally for California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides when he told the students, "You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

This is not just an insult to servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq; the implication behind the joke is that those in the military are there because they aren’t smart enough to be somewhere else. This is a real insult to all veterans, and this close to Veterans Day, the timing was especially poor.

These comments are not unexpected, however, from a man who we learned all too much about during the last presidential campaign.

Over time, many voters got the feeling that Kerry was the kind of liberal that gave liberals a bad name – a wealthy intellectual elitist who pictures himself as being better and smarter than the regular people of America, but in actuality has a whole lot less common sense than your average tree stump.

Last week, he pretty much proved the voters were right.

On Election Day in 2004, the people of America sent a message to John Kerry, and since he was counting on becoming our next president, it was a message he didn’t like.

But he shouldn’t have been surprised considering all the stupid things he said on the campaign trail.

As hard as the Democratic machine tried to shape and mold Kerry into a candidate that the people of this country could believe in, with every public appearance, Kerry said and did things that completely undermined their efforts.

Mediocre candidates, with proper handling, can be shaped into better candidates, provided they have some basic important qualities.

Kerry, however, was missing one essential quality – intelligence.

You can fix a lot of things, but you can’t fix stupid.

And that makes all of this especially ironic – John Kerry calling the servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq "stupid."

That’s not the pot calling the kettle black, that’s the pot calling the silverware black!

Kerry, did, eventually, apologize for his remarks – sort of.

One of funniest things said regarding Kerry’s apology was something Vice President Dick Cheney said.

Cheney said Kerry had "rightly" apologized, although he quipped that the senator "was for the joke before he was against it."

Now, you have to admit, for Dick Cheney, that’s pretty funny.

Even Kerry’s colleagues were shocked by the senator’s joke.

Fellow Democrats who had asked Kerry to come and speak at their campaign events, found themselves politely "uninviting" Kerry. Planned appearances were cancelled.

One moment I’ll never forget from the 2004 Democratic convention that still makes me sick to my stomach is the one where John Kerry stepped up on stage and showed us all a snappy salute and said, "John Kerry, reporting for duty."

When you have that kind of service record, you really should not try to make it a cornerstone of your campaign. It was such an obvious and transparent attempt to portray himself as a candidate that’s strong on homeland security and national defense, a candidate that’s a real "hero" – but it was so badly done – so "over the top" stupid – that I think that ended his chances right there in the eyes of many voters.

A lot of people are predicting the Democrats will seize control of both the House and Senate this Tuesday by significant margins.

I’m not sure if Kerry’s joke will take the wind out of the Democrats’ sails during this mid-term election when they are riding higher than they have in a long time, but it certainly will not help them win the hearts and minds of middle America.

The lesson we should all take from this is that it doesn’t really matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat – there’s no shortage of idiots on either side.