Posted on 12/08/2003 9:47:00 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card yesterday called on his home state's senator to apologize to President Bush, calling it ``beneath'' John F. Kerry to use an expletive to blast Bush's handling of the Iraq war. The Holbrook native, who serves as Bush's top deputy, said Kerry shouldn't have used the phrase ``f--- it up'' to assail Bush. ``I've known John Kerry for a long time and I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language,'' Card said on CNN's Late Edition. ``That's beneath John Kerry. . . . I'm hoping that he's apologizing, at least to himself, because that's not the John Kerry that I know,'' Card said. The comments were the first White House rebuke of a Democrat in the presidential primary campaign. Local and national Republicans joined the fray, saying Kerry's comments seemed to be prompted by his steady drop in primary polls. ``A drop in the polls seems to correspond with a drop in word choice for Sen. Kerry,'' RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Taylor said. ``It's not the type of language you would expect to hear from a leader.'' ``John Kerry's pathetic campaign has sunk to a new low,'' added Massachusetts Republican Party Executive Director Dominick Ianno. ``It's to the point where he just keeps embarrassing himself.'' Bush's White House, including the president, has ardently declined to comment on any Democratic bashing - letting the Republican National Committee and other elected Republicans take the lead. And it marks a rare flashpoint between the two Massachusetts politicians. Kerry told Rolling Stone he didn't expect to be hurt politically over his vote to support Bush's resolution to use force in Iraq. Since his vote, Kerry has been hobbled on the campaign trail as anti-war Democrat Howard Dean has soared to the lead in most primary polls. ``I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, `I'm against everything'? Sure,'' Kerry said. ``Did I expect George Bush to f--- it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did,'' Kerry said, not deleting the expletive. Kerry, speaking to reporters on a conference call from San Diego yesterday, refused to answer questions about the dust-up. A Kerry spokesman said Bush won't get any apology. ``No amount of apologies is going to make up for the Bush administration's failed policy on Iraq,'' Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said. ``John Kerry is so angry about the failed policy that, yes, he swore about it.'' Meehan noted Bush's caught-on-tape swear about a New York Times reporter, whom Bush called a ``major league (expletive),'' saying Kerry would apologize when Bush does. Another Kerry aide, Stephanie Cutter, said the Rolling Stone comments aren't the first time Kerry has used the obscenity and denied he was trying to appear more hip to the youth-oriented magazine. ``He's said this before, it wasn't any effort to play up to a younger audience,'' Cutter said.
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