I did not see the exchange and know next to nothing about hockey - even though I grew up outside Chicago with family that watched the Black Hawks. I took the two sentences to be related - that Kerry should not play hockey - and that Brown should enforce that. This completely changes that I can imagine that Brown did not like the joke and he really is very thin skinned.
Also - not "my Bad". I had been thinking of the the SOTU and was trying to understand the ebbs and flows of it, trying to understand why I was so happy with it. I also was trying to figure out why the Republican faces got more distorted as it went on - while Democrats seemed to get happier and more relaxed. I don't think I have seen more emotion shown that splits as it did. It was subtle, but it seemed to consistent to just be random.
So, I had already worked out some of the Obama stuff - when I saw your post, and started to defend Kerry, I realized the fact that Obama and Kerry essentially did similar things. The Kerry interview was far simpler and the duality (idealism, love of country, wanting to do right by people, fairness AND on the other hand, willingness to call out the Republicans in polite, accurate accounts of what they did) more obvious. Though very different in other ways, both Obama and Kerry share a genuine niceness and a calmness that leads to them taking the extra step to try to make peace - and I admire it in both of them. Where it helps them - and it is obviously more important in Obama's case - is that it is very obvious and it means the Republican charge that the Democrats would not compromise just doesn't hold water. More and more, the republicans are getting the blame.
So, I don't know if I am seeing things as I think they should be, rather than what they were, but there did seem to be a lot of really down in dumps Republicans. (Even in the Kerry/Brown photos, the one who more often looks happy and animated was the one with the black eyes.)
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