re: Framing?
Possible. You can tweak it around that way if you go over the statement.
Nevertheless, it's not how a lot of people heard it, and not just Republican politicians. Judging by the reaction, the whole room took it that way, for one thing.
Even if you're right, given the number of times people like Bush have been pilloried by the liberal media and Democrats for misspoken statements, I find it hard to dredge up a lot of sympathy for Kerry.
If Kerry didn't have a long history of being anti-military, at least until 2004, it might have been easier for people to cut him some slack.