ShareThisBy MARC SANDALOW
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
It is a case study in modern politics or lunacy _ perhaps both _ that two sentences uttered by a Massachusetts senator not up for re-election would come to dominate the political airwaves less than a week before what is shaping up as a historic national election.
How else to explain the lasting attention given to remarks Monday by Sen. John Kerry in Los Angeles that he described as a botched joke aimed at President Bush and that his political opponents described as a deliberate swipe at American troops fighting in Iraq?
Experts described a perfect political storm in which the GOP's desperation to tarnish their opponents, the Democrats' defensiveness over being branded as soft on defense and the media's fixation with conflict all collided within days of a close, fiercely fought election.
The offending lines were delivered Monday in Pasadena, Calif., at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides.
"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," Kerry said.
He later said he had inadvertently left out the word "us," which would have changed the line to "you get us stuck in Iraq," which was then to be followed with the words: "Ask President Bush."
Kerry apologized late Wednesday afternoon, stating: "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 troop."
"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."
By the time Kerry issued his apology, he had been upbraided by the president, the vice president and Pentagon officials. At least 18 Republican House candidates had called on their Democratic opponents to renounce their party's 2004 presidential candidate. Republicans produced a quickie Web ad condemning Kerry and called on Democratic candidates to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions that Kerry had helped them raise. The White House communications office, in its daily report to the news media, included Bush's criticism of Kerry as its lead item, ahead of North Korea's decision to join six-party talks, the president's consultations in Sudan and a rise in wages.
The news media kept the conflict alive as the war of words dominated the day's political coverage. White House press secretary Tony Snow fielded 31 questions on the matter at his daily news conference.
"The media is easily duped," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, who credited _ or perhaps blamed _ Republicans for being "very good at translating misstatements into news."
Analysts weighing the impact on next Tuesday's midterm election vote said the incident might fire up the dispirited Republican base but expressed doubt that the many voters would remember the details by next week.
