KERRY APOLOGIZES FOR "DIAPERS" REMARK

newsobserver.com/Drudge ^ | 1-19-2004 | John Wagner

[EggsAckley]

KERRY APOLOGIZES FOR "DIAPERS" REMARK

(01/18/04)

U.S. Sen. John Kerry called U.S. Sen. John Edwards late Sunday night to apologize for suggesting Edwards might have been in diapers when he returned from Vietnam, aides to Edwards said.

While campaigning in Iowa Sunday, Kerry was asked how he differed from Edwards. Kerry touted his foreign policy experience and said that when he returned home after serving in Vietnam in 1969, "I don't even know if John Edwards was out of diapers."

Edwards responded Sunday evening before a stop in Mason City that drew an overflow crowd.

"I honor his service in Vietnam," Edwards said. "In 1969, I was sitting around the kitchen table with my parents trying to figure out how we would pay for college like so many Iowans do. ... And that is a difference between me and Senator Kerry."

Edwards attended Clemson University and then transferred to N.C. State when he could not get a football scholarship. Kerry attended prep schools and Yale University.

Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Kerry called Edwards to apologize and that Edwards accepted. --John Wagner

[TheBigB]

Kerry was in Vietnam?

[Azzurri]

Kerry was in Vietnam?

I know, it's shocking. I never heard Kerry mention his service in Vietnam before.
< /sarcasm>

[Always Right]

"I honor his service in Vietnam," Edwards said. "In 1969, I was sitting around the kitchen table with my parents trying to figure out how we would pay for college like so many Iowans do. ...

Yeah, but was Edwards out of diapers....

[Unknown Freeper]

Kerry was in Viet Nam? Ya don't say...

[Happy2BMe]

"Kerry attended prep schools and Yale University."

That's RIGHT - And he didn't wear no F***ING DIAPER EITHER!

[Conspiracy Guy]

Thanks. I was going to ask the same thing.

CG

[Loyal Buckeye]

Or, is Edwards still in diapers?

[ambrose]

Kerry served in Vietnam? Why didn't you post this in Breaking News??

[anonymous_user]

Wasn't nearly as offensive as Shrillary's Ghandi-managing-a-gas-station comment.

[SkyPilot]

"I honor his service in Vietnam," Edwards said. "In 1969, I was sitting around the kitchen table with my parents trying to figure out how we would pay for college like so many Iowans do. ... And that is a difference between me and Senator Kerry."

SLAM!

[mewzilla]

Miaow! I can see it now: John F Kerry vs. John "The Breck Girl" Edwards in a hair-pulling contest. May the one with the most executive-style hair left win!

[Capt. Tom]

Kerry was in Viet Nam.
And another little know fact; Kerry isn't Irish anymore. - Tom

[KC_Conspirator]

Kerry was also protesting against this country, posing with John Lennon, and throwing someone elses medals over the White House fence while Edwards was still in diapers.

[dead]

I don't know what's more shocking - the fact that Kerry served in Vietnam (how did I not know that?) or that Edwards played football! I figured him for more of a cheerleader.

[MeekOneGOP]

haha! These guys are all on edge, aren't they ?? LOL !

[Plutarch]

Yeah, well at least Edwards didn't sling his diapers over the White House fence.

[cynicom]

Kerry is a Nam veteran??? Golleeeee, I bet there are another million or two just like that.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Do you mean to tell me that John (F'in) Kerry was in Viet (F'n) Nam? Extraordinary.

[South40]

Washington Times

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
December 6, 2002



John Kerry's war record As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned - and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag.

Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam - an odd coincidence.

As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died.

The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.

As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in
Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE
Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)
Washington