Senator, John "Loose Lips" Kerry had been carefully and quietly building himself back up after his failed 2004 presidential run, campaigning for Democratic candidates in places where he could forget about his sometimes strained relationships with his peers back in Washington.
But with a single word — or a single word left out of what was supposed to be a laugh line directed at the president — Mr. Kerry has become a punching bag again, for Republicans and for his own party.
“Please stop it,” Mr. Kerry’s friend, Harvey Snarfblat, urged him on his morning broadcast. “Stop talking. Go home, what the heck are you doing telling jokes anyway you have no facial expressions.”
But even as Mr. Kerry seemed to follow that advice, retreating to Washington, he was not going away. The media kept looking as if he was the unpopular kid at a kegger and saying ‘Dude why are you still here?’
For Republicans and the White House, Mr. Kerry’s “botched joke” Monday was manna from Massachusetts, that reliable redoubt of liberal caricatures. The White House, which had been struggling for ways to make President Bush less of a liability in the election, seized on Mr. Kerry’s comments, with the president, vice president and spokesmen blanketing radio and television to blast him for impugning the troops. Tony Snow was saying ‘Yes, we did put the troops in harms way, making national security worse, and ignored all evidence of a growing civil war in Iraq, John Kerry mis-spoke, that is just shameful. So, maybe, some members of our party like young boys, or beat up there mistresses, at least we don’t ignore the troops, I mean make fun of the troops. You’ll never hear a Republican promise body armor, then not give it to the troops, we just say, the body armor won’t help, anywho, get out there and do this one for the gipper! ”
For Democrats, Mr. Kerry became a headache, as Republican candidates in tight races across the country demanded that Democrats return money they had taken from him or call on him to apologize, or at least shut the hell up sheesh!, just cause you can’t win an election, why does every one else have to be miserable?
Three Democratic challengers announced they had canceled plans to campaign with him — leaving one, Tim Walz in Minnesota, without a prominent surrogate while his opponent campaigned with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who called Mr. Kerry unsupportive of the troops and a big dumb turd.
Mr. Kerry’s advisers were trying to figure out the damage as he considers a 2008 run.
The long-term problem was not so much that he appeared to be insulting the troops — although that did not help, when his message rests so much on his military service and concern for veterans. It was more that his remarks left a segment of his own party, and perhaps the electorate, wondering if he has the agility and political skill to compete at the highest level.
“Do you need to go to joke school?” one reporter asked him.
“Sure,” Mr. Kerry replied — a notably concise answer for a senator who typically speaks in boring paragraphs the usually put the listener to sleep before he gets his message out.
His advisers lamented the senator’s inability to get out of his own way, as much as they attacked Mr. Bush and others for trying to raise doubts about Mr. Kerry’s patriotism when they had never gone to war.
Mr. Kerry’s prepared remarks to California students on Monday called for him to say, “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.” In his delivery, he dropped the word “us.”
As always, Democrats came out strongly against him. Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., who is running for an open Senate seat in Tennessee, said Mr. Kerry was “wrong to say what he did, and why is that guy trying to lose an election he is not even part of” and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York called Mr. Kerry’s remarks inappropriate, but would still like to hook up
with Theresa Heinz Kerry for ‘afternoon tea’ and ketchup smearing.
After canceling his appearances, Mr. Kerry called several fellow Democrats to tell them he would apologize, and by the end of the day he issued this statement:
“As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troops. I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.”
He blamed Republicans for preferring to “talk about anything but their failed security policy.”
“I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country and a winning strategy for our troops.
Other Democrats insisted the episode revealed little.
“If the issue is whether or not John Kerry can tell a joke and tell it well," Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, who campaigned for Mr. Kerry in 2004, said in an interview with Radio Iowa, “I could have told you the answer to that question was no a week ago, HELL NO! But, that G. Dub tells some knee slappers, boy howdy!”
John Kerry tried to rebut with a dirty lymrick “There once was a man from Nantucket, who’s winkie was so long he could put it in his mouth and do naughty things with it-“ we could give you the rest but down that road, madness lies.
(Above John Kerry, "Hey Tom am I funny now?"
