After criticizing tenor of politics, Heinz Kerry tells reporter to shove it’
BOSTON – Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry doesn’t have a problem with his wife telling an insistent journalist to “shove it” when urged to explain her plea for more civility in politics. Neither does Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I think my wife speaks her mind appropriately,” Kerry told reporters Monday when asked about the exchange between his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Asked about the response on CNN’s “American Morning,” Clinton said Monday, “A lot of Americans are going to say, ‘Good for you, you go, girl,’ and that’s certainly how I feel about it.”
Heinz Kerry attended a Massachusetts Statehouse reception Sunday night for fellow Pennsylvanians, telling them, “We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics.” She criticized the tenor of modern political campaigns without being specific.
Minutes later, the Tribune-Review’s Colin McNickle questioned Heinz Kerry on what she meant by the term “un-American,” according to a tape of the encounter recorded by Pittsburgh television station WTAE.
Heinz Kerry said “I didn’t say that” several times to McNickle. She then turned to confer with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others. When she faced McNickle again a short time later, he continued to question her, and she replied: “You said something I didn’t say. Now shove it.”
A spokeswoman for Heinz Kerry later said, “This was sheer frustration aimed at a right-wing rag that has consistently and purposely misrepresented the facts in reporting on Mrs. Kerry and her family.”
Vice President Dick Cheney recently came under criticism for using a four-letter obscenity in an exchange with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate floor. He later was unapologetic about the remark, saying: “I felt better after I said it.”
Rendell said he didn’t see anything wrong with what Heinz Kerry said.
“It was mild, polite and appropriate compared to Dick Cheney,” Rendell said.
Rep. Don Sherwood, a Pennsylvania congressman who offered rebuttals to the Democratic convention on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Heinz Kerry can get carried away.
“We’d love to have her spend a lot more campaign time in Pennsylvania,” Sherwood said. “I just think the more we see of Teresa, the better it’ll be for the Bush campaign.”