Kerry voices regret, stops campaigning
'Stuck in Iraq' comment stirs bipartisan furor
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry yesterday canceled his remaining campaign appearances under heavy fire from Republicans -- and kept at arm's length by some Democrats -- over his comments that underachieving students would end up "stuck in Iraq."
The senator released a statement yesterday saying, "I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended."
The Massachusetts Democrat and the party's 2004 presidential nominee did not make planned appearances yesterday in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, and will not make stops today in Iowa, and Sunday in New Hampshire, saying he does not want to be a distraction to Democratic candidates. Bruce Braley, campaigning to represent Iowa in the House, told Kerry's camp that he did not want the senator by his side.
Pressured by Republicans and some Democrats to apologize, Kerry abandoned the defiant stance he took on Tuesday, when he accused Republicans of twisting his words. He told radio host Don Imus he was "sorry about a botched joke" and called what he said "stupid."
In the statement released later in the day, he said, "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."
Kerry said he has sidelined himself to keep the political focus on President Bush's Iraq war policies.
"I'm not going to go to some place that a congressman's going to get embroiled in this, because I want them to win," Kerry said shortly before flying to Washington from Minnesota. "But I want the real issues to be the real issues. And I'm just not going to let [the Republicans] lie."
Aides said the senator has not decided whether he will attend campaign events in Massachusetts before the election. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval L. Patrick , asked during last night's debate by host Cokie Roberts about Kerry's comments, said, "I think he knows it was a dumb comment and has said so."
His campaign did not answer questions yesterday about whether Kerry is welcome on the stump.
On Monday, at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides in Pasadena, Calif., Kerry said: "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. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Republicans instantly exploited the gaffe, demanding an apology. Kerry answered by blasting the GOP and "assorted right-wing nut-jobs" for criticizing him, and scolded the White House for the Iraq war at a follow-up press conference.
Kerry said he had intended to say "you get us stuck in Iraq" at the rally, a jab at Bush. His aides said his prepared text included that line, adding that the senator flubbed it and dropped the next one: "Just ask President Bush."
The matter quickly became a major headache for Democrats, who need just 15 seats to become the majority party in the House and six seats to take over the Senate. Until yesterday, Republicans had been on the defensive because of public anger about the war.
Kerry has spent months on a mission to soothe hard feelings lingering from his failed 2004 presidential run; the controversy echoed other verbal stumbles that Republicans used to help defeat him. On the radio, Imus implored Kerry to keep quiet until after the election.
"Stop talking," Imus said. "Go home, get on the bike, go windsurfing -- anything. Stop it. You're going to ruin this."
Kerry's blunder could kill his ambitions to run for president in 2008, said Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political science professor. "He couldn't have been more inept," Berry said. "John Kerry represents everything that Democrats have come to dislike about their own party -- weakness, indecisiveness, strategic errors -- and this just adds to it."
Kerry's defenders blamed Republicans for creating a false controversy to distract voters from ongoing chaos in Iraq.
"I saw the clip, and like anybody else who actually saw it I knew exactly what he was saying," said William J. Lynch, head of the Rhode Island Democratic Party. "For me, it further confirms the desperation of this president to try to twist this and make an issue of it for a day or two."
But many Democrats condemned Kerry's comments.
Jon Tester, the party's candidate in the Senate race in Montana, called the comments "poorly worded and just plain stupid." Democratic Representative Harold Ford Jr., locked in a tough Senate race in Tennessee, said Kerry "was wrong."
Paul Hodes, the Democrat challenging Representative Charles Bass in New Hampshire, was to join Kerry at a rally in
"Republicans are seizing on anything they can to divert -- or try to divert -- the voters from the real issues," Hodes said.
In the meantime, Kerry is laying low for the rest of the campaign to keep "the Republican hate machine" from using Democrats "as proxies in their distorted spin war," said David Wade, a Kerry spokesman.
The controversy has galvanized Republicans, who are bracing for potentially big losses in Tuesday's congressional elections. A parade of GOP leaders -- led by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- chided Kerry and mocked him at campaign events yesterday.
"He was for the joke before he was against it," Cheney said at a rally in Montana, linking the controversy to Kerry's verbal stumble in 2004. "Kerry needs to learn that the men and women serving in Iraq aren't there because they didn't study hard."
The Republican National Committee quickly produced a Web advertisement juxtaposing the gaffe with GOP support for US troops. Republicans bashed the senator on conservative talk radio programs and cable TV news shows, and GOP House and Senate candidates called on their Democratic opponents to denounce Kerry and return his campaign contributions.
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican and potential 2008 presidential candidate, said Kerry's statement yesterday was "kind of an attack apology. He's attacking people for misinterpreting supposedly what he said. What he said was as plain as plain can be, and he ought to issue an apology that's as plain as plain can be."
Jonathan Saltzman and Scott Helman of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent James W. Pindell contributed to this report. 