Max's Mewsings

Clearly she was accusing her husband's opponents of something. A journalist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review asked her the obvious question: what did she mean by 'un-American?' Mrs. Kerry denied using the word several times in their exchange and then left to speak to organizers of the event.

Then, inexplicably, she returned to the journalist and asked him if he worked for the Tribune-Review, when he answered in the affirmative she said, "Understandable. You said something I didn't say, now shove it."

After the "incident" (as CNN is calling it - outburst might be more appropriate) a Heinz Kerry spokesperson tried to explain it all away. It seems that Mrs. Kerry is frustrated with a "right-wing rag" hell-bent on misquoting her, her husband (and presumably their fish - even if they don't have any).

How could this have happened? Mrs. Kerry clearly has incompetent handlers.

"Un-American" is a politically charged word in American politics, ever since Joe McCarthy used it to describe alleged communists. Any staffer worth more than $1.25 per hour knows that and would have had a quick powwow with Mrs. Kerry before she met with the media. Clearly that didn't happen.

Mrs. Kerry also had time to come to her own senses after she stomped away from the reporter - this was another opportunity for a handler to step in and move her out and on to her next event. That didn't happen either.
She went back to get the last word in.

Heinz Kerry staff had a final opportunity to end this by apologizing to the journalist and explaining Mrs. Kerry mispoke when she used the term un-American or she was referring to all the negative campaign ads or any other plausible explanation of what she might have meant. Again, that didn't happen. Instead her spokesperson chose to blame the journalist for doing his job.

I would say the statement was a nice try, but it isn't even worthy of my sarcasm. Mrs. Kerry owes voters an explanation of what she meant when she essentially accused George Bush of being un-American, and she should apologize to the journalist and his newspaper for attacking their integrity in her terrible defense of her mistake.

Instead, Mrs. Kerry letting the story run and trying to play the victim - she tells CNN, this morning, she was defending herself. She apparently hasn't seen the videotape. The reporter is by no means being discourteous or rude and is certainly not "attacking" her. And you can't claim you're defending yourself if you walk back to get the last word in.

What should have been a one-day story is going to now be at least a three-day story because none of her handlers is apparently allowed to do what they're paid to do and mitigate the damage. Someone needs to tell her that at this level of politics you need staff, not servants.