Caplis said Kerry “has become the Democrats' Mark Foley times 1,000 because now this goes beyond ... whether some guy's a pervert who assaults little boys”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Radio host Dan Caplis said that, because of a remark some called insulting to U.S. troops, Sen. John F. Kerry “has become the Democrats' Mark Foley times 1,000 because now this goes beyond, hey, whether some guy's a pervert who assaults little boys.”

During the October 31 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show, co-host Dan Caplis said that, because of a comment some deemed insulting to U.S. troops, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) “has become the Democrats' Mark Foley times 1,000 because now this goes beyond, hey, whether some guy's a pervert who assaults little boys.”

Caplis was referring to a remark that Kerry made October 30 during a speech at a California campaign rally, where Kerry stated that “if ... you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.”

As The Boston Globe reported on November 1, “President Bush joined prominent Republicans yesterday in blasting Senator John F. Kerry for comments they said demeaned the intelligence of US troops, after Kerry gave a speech at a political rally where he said that students who don't perform well 'get stuck in Iraq.' ” Kerry later said that his comment was a “botched joke” aimed at President Bush, not the troops serving in Iraq.

The prepared remarks from Kerry's speech, as reported by the Globe and other media outlets, appear to support Kerry's explanation. From the November 1 Globe article:

According to Kerry's prepared text, as provided to reporters, Kerry intended to reference Bush in that portion of the speech.

“Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy?” Kerry was to say. “You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”

Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress on September 29 after ABC News confronted him with evidence that he had exchanged emails as well as sexually explicit instant message conversations with teenage male congressional pages.

According to Caplis, Kerry's comment “is going to prove decisive in this election. I think he has become the Democrats' Mark Foley times 1,000.”

From the October 31 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show:

CAPLIS: Well, and he [Kerry] certainly is a leader of the Democratic Party, and I appreciate your comments on that, but because he's a leader of the Democratic Party -- heck, he was their last presidential nominee -- what he said about our troops now, I think, is going to prove decisive in this election. I think he has become the Democrats' Mark Foley times 1,000 because now this goes beyond, hey, whether some guy's a pervert who assaults little boys. This goes to, hey, what does the leader of the Democratic Party -- or a top leader of the Democratic Party -- really think of our troops, and does he really want us to win in Iraq? Because nobody could say the things, in my view, that he said about our troops and at the same time really want us to win in Iraq. So I think this is seismic.