This was planned. It was in a sit-down interview. With Rolling Stone, no less -- not Newsweek -- RS's readers would respond favorably, on balance, to this. Kerry's handlers knew exactly what they were doing.
He wasn't overheard at a restaurant. This wasn't some reporter nearby when he got the bad news of his poll numbers. This was a planned "slip up".
It's supposed to make the WH and critics look like prudes and it expresses Kerry's bona fides vis-a-vis the Dean crowd. Dean may disagree with Bush's policies, but Kerry is f'in' pissed!
"It's supposed to make the WH critics look like prudes and it expresses Kerry's bona fides vis-a-vis the Dean crowd."
Your absolutely right! If the WH continues to make this an issue, Kerry's going to call them on it and who knows, perhaps he would even go as far as using more potty mouth words to describe Bush. The liberals would eat it up.