WASHINGTON – The Bush campaign yesterday fired back at John Kerry wife’s Teresa for questioning President Bush’s and Vice President Dick Cheney’s patriotism.
The candidate’s outspoken wife had called both men “unpatriotic” because their campaign has questioned whether Kerry was truthful when he claimed he never tossed away his Navy medals at a Vietnam War protest.
The president and vice president also have criticized Kerry’s national-security record.
But yesterday, Kerry’s wife said they’d gone too far.
“To have a couple of people, who escaped [Vietnam service] four, five, six times and deferred and deferred and deferred calling him anything . . . is in and of itself unpatriotic. Unpatriotic,” Teresa Heinz Kerry said in an interview with Telemundo, NBC’s Spanish-language network.
She was referring to Bush’s stateside assignment in the Texas Air National Guard, which kept him out of Vietnam, and Cheney’s five deferments, which kept him out of military service entirely.
Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot hit back, saying: “Every time the discussion focuses on John Kerry’s Senate record of voting against weapons systems, voting against support for troops in the field, or his positions on both sides of critical questions of national security, his campaign falsely claims that his patriotism is being attacked.
“This political line of attack is offensive and should be stopped,” Racicot said.
Neither Bush nor Cheney has commented specifically on Kerry’s service in Vietnam, but Bush campaign officials have repeatedly said Kerry’s service was admirable.
Mrs. Kerry also told Barbara Walters on ABC News’ “20/20” that she planned to have an abortion 30 years ago, but miscarried the night before she was due to undergo the procedure.
She also said she won’t release her personal income tax records because she doesn’t have the right to share her sons’ records with the public. She has come under GOP fire for not disclosing the returns.
Some of her children’s records are commingled with hers, Kerry said, adding that she is working on separating the records so she can release her own tax information. The Kerry campaign has indicated it will provide more tax information, but not necessarily her returns.