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QUESTION: Senator, John McCain said that you owe an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered this country’s call because they are patriots.
To those people who didn’t get your joke, who may have misinterpreted you as saying the undereducated are cannon fodder, what do you say?
KERRY: I never said that, and John McCain knows I’ve never said that and John McCain knows I wouldn’t say that.
And John McCain ought to ask for an apology from Donald Rumsfeld for making the mistakes he’s made. John McCain ought to ask for an apology from this administration for not sending in enough troops.
He ought to ask for an apology for putting our troops on the line with a policy that doesn’t have an adequate coalition, that doesn’t have adequate diplomacy, where we don’t have a strategy to win.
And what we need is to debate the real issues, not these phony, sideline issues that are part of the politics. Americans are tired — sick and tired of this kind of politics.
They know my true feelings. They know I fought to provide additional money for veterans. They know I fought to provide money for combat for veterans. They know I’ve fought to put money for V.A. They know I’ve honored those veterans.
They know that this is the finest military — and I’ve said it 100,000 times — that we’ve ever had. They know precisely what I was saying.
And they’re trying to turn this because they have a bankrupt policy and they can’t defend it to the nation and they can’t defend it to the world.
KERRY: And I’m not going to stand for this anymore; period. That’s the apology that people ought to get.
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