"If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President"
Below is a transcript of Kerry's remarks, as delivered:
SENATOR 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 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 troops and to their families.
My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.
The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops, as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches at which they have not told the American people the truth.
I'm not going to stand for it.
What our troops deserve is a winning strategy. And what they deserve is leadership that is up to the sacrifice that they're making.
Sadly, this is the best that this administration can do in a month when we have lost 100 young men and women who have given their lives for a failed policy.
Over half the names on the Vietnam wall were put there after our leaders knew that our policy was wrong. And it was wrong that leaders were quiet then, and I'm not going to be quiet now.
This is a textbook Republican campaign strategy: Try to change the topic; try to make someone else the issue; try to make something else said the issue, not the policy, not their responsibility.
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