New York Times Corrects Its Flub On Kerry Flub

November 3rd, 2006 12:16 PM

Today's New York Times admitted that in yesterday's edition an article on the John Kerry imbroglio was more than a little wrong.

Yesterday's piece "Flubbed Joke Makes Kerry a Political Punching Bag, Again" included:

"But with a single word — or a single word left out of what was supposed to be a laugh line directed at the president — Mr. Kerry has become a punching bag again, for Republicans and for his own party."

Gosh darn, just that one, single, individual pesky word that was missed opened Monsieur Kerry once again to that infamous Republican attack machine.

Not exactly. Today the newspaper has appended the following correction:

"A Political Memo article yesterday about the fallout for Senator John Kerry over what he called a 'botched joke' referred incompletely to the differences between prepared remarks and what he actually said about the Iraq war to students at Pasadena City College in California on Monday. Mr. Kerry not only dropped the word 'us,' but he also rephrased his opening sentence extensively and omitted a reference to President Bush. Mr. Kerry’s aides said that the prepared text read: 'Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.' What he said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Guess it wasn't, as originally reported, that one, single, individual pesky word after all.

Vive la difference!