NEWS ANALYSIS / Kerry's gibe, GOP reaction stir up perfect political storm

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 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. A search of Nexis found 477 references to Kerry in news outlets by Wednesday evening. And a clip of Kerry's comments was the Internet site YouTube's No. 1 watched video with 455,000 viewings (far outpacing No. 2 Borat on David Letterman's TV show, which had just 321,000.)

"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.

Mike Barrett, a Republican running in rural Minnesota, said he was delighted that his Democratic opponent, Rep. Colin Peterson, had been asked about the controversy on WDAY radio's "Hot Talk" Wednesday, asserting that voters are quite upset about Peterson's association with "cut and run" Democrats. But the lead stories on the Fargo, N.D., station's Web site Wednesday were not about Kerry but about a car than had run into a house and the demolition of a 37-year-old smokestack.

In Connecticut, where opposition to the war in Iraq has given Democrats a major boost, strategists said the matter will be tangential to most voters.

"I think (Republican Rep. Chris) Shays has his own Iraq problems. He doesn't need any help from Kerry," said Jan Ellen Spiegel, a spokeswoman for Democratic challenger Dianne Farrell.

Yet some Republicans said the story has legs because it reinforces the notion that Democrats don't support the military. It provides Republicans an opportunity to put a face on their political enemy at time when voters are clearly dissatisfied with the status quo.

House Majority Leader John Boehner distributed a statement on Kerry that said: "He is liberal, a leftist, and this is the typical attitude they have toward our military."

"What the John Kerry's misquote did is remind us that in the drawing salons of Boston and New York, when they drop their brandy and their cigars, interrupt their watching of the Lehrer news hour -- they really don't have a great deal of respect for the military," said Republican strategist Michael Collins.

Meanwhile, for Democrats who believe they have been wrongly accused of being soft on defense since George McGovern's "Come home, America," campaign yielded him 17 electoral votes during the Vietnam war, the incident provided a chance to stand up to what they believe are scurrilous attacks.

"It is clear the Republican Party would rather 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," Kerry said in Wednesday's apology.

The day before, Kerry said he was "sick and tired of a whole bunch of Republican attacks, most of which come from people who never wore the uniform and never had the courage to stand up and go to war themselves. Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for this."

Many Democrats cheered Kerry's indignation even as they cringed at the way he inserted himself into the election.

When Kerry called talk show "Imus in the Morning" to defend himself, host Don Imus implored him to "just stop it" before he dooms the Democrats' chances next week.

"Stop talking. Go home, get on the bike, go windsurfing, anything. Stop it. You're going to ruin this," Imus said.

By the end of the day, it was Democrats who were voicing outrage over a comment Boehner made on CNN when asked whether Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is to blame for failures in Iraq.

"The fact is the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president," Boehner said.

That prompted Democrats to voice offense at Boehner's slight at the generals and to call for him to apologize.

"Being offended is an art form that is practiced by both parties -- with relish," said Allan Louden, a professor of political communication at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.