Senator Kerry Defends Statement Regarding Troops

Official statement to the press.
October 31, 2006

Senator John Kerry:
Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to NO ONE for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy. If anyone owes our incredibly stupid troops in the fields an apology, it is the President and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to stamp -- rubber-stamp policies that have done injury to our stupid troops and to their families. My dance number with Justin Timberlake yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched wardrobe malfunction about the president and the president's people, not about our stupid troops. The White House's attempt to distort my dance number into looking like I actually meant to flash the televised world my pierced right nipple is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything, even my naked titty, to raw politics. I'm not going to stand for it. This is a textbook Republican campaign strategy: Try to change the topic; try to make someone else the issue; try to make what someone else said the issue, not the policy, not their responsibility. Well, everybody knows it's not working this time, and I'm not going to stand around and let it work. If anyone thinks that a dance veteran, someone like me, who's been dancing my entire career to provide wholesome entertainment for veterans, to help honor what their service is, if anybody thinks that a dance veteran would somehow insult more than 140,000 stupid troops by purposefully exposing their boob and not realize that the naked boob was meant to be a criticism of the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy. It's just wrong. This is a classic GOP textbook Republican campaign tactic. I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt, or the firm titties, of those mistakes. I'm sick and tired of a whole bunch of Republican attacks, most of which come from people who never wore the uniform and never experienced a botched wardrobe malfunction while dancing before the troops themselves. Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for this. This policy is broken, more broken than the push-up bra that the Republicans know was supposed to stay secure. And they know that's what I was trying to do yesterday; provide wholesome entertainment or our soldiers. I'm not going to be lectured by a White House or by the likes of Rush Limbaugh who's taking a day off from mimicking and attacking Michael J. Fox, who's now going to try to attack me and lie about me and distort what I was trying to do. No way. It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the dance uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did. I think Americans are sick and tired of this game. These Republicans are afraid to stand up and debate a real entertainer on this topic. And they're afraid to debate -- you know, they want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men, real men who aren't threatened by wearing a sexy costume that might, just might, come undone at an inopportune moment.