I am sure John Kerry's spokeperson, Stephanie Cutter, is a wonderful person doing a challenging job to the best of her extraordinary ability. But I sense that the press is getting a bit impatient with some of her answers.
For example, Ms. Cutter was asked to comment on the surprising news that Hillary! would not be a featured speaker at the Democratic Convention, leading to this:
"She never asked," said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign. "Obviously, Hillary Clinton is a leader in the party and is working hard to elect John Kerry." But Ms. Cutter said she did not know whether each speaker, including Ms. Clinton's husband, had formally requested time.
If your excuse is "the dog ate my homework", you might want to be ready for follow-ups such as "Do you even have a dog?".
Earlier, Ms. Cutter induced a smile with her (understandable and excusable) confusion about the new ground her boss was breaking on abortion. Sen. Kerry delivered the news that he believed that life began at conception, leading to this report:
Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said that although Kerry has often said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," and that his religion shapes that view, she could not recall him ever publicly discussing when life begins.
The Kerry Message Machine is not purring precisely.
UPDATE: Well, it is not just Stephanie. More from Kerry, King of Komedy:
Kerry's campaign has challenged Bush to say whether he read the complete intelligence report before deciding to go to war, or whether he just read a one-page summary, which Democrats say gave him none of the dissenting views included in the full version.
The Kerry campaign stepped up the attack on Wednesday, sending out an e-mail with the headline, "Did anyone in the White House read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq?"
Bold and aggressive! However, there is a fairly obvious follow-up question for which you might want to have a good answer. Or not.
Democratic candidate John Kerry... did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.
..."Along with other senators, he was briefed on the contents of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) by (then-CIA (news - web sites) Director) George Tenet and other administration intelligence officials," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.
Yeah, so was George Bush. It was a slam-dunk!
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