Correcting Zernike's Misleading Kerry "Joke" Story

The Times admits its story on Kerry's apology was wrong.

A correction's been made to yesterday's inaccurate and misleading pro-Kerry story by reporter Kate Zernike, which falsely implied Sen. Kerry had mentioned Bush in his "joke" about the perils of a lack of education including getting "stuck in Iraq."



Now appended to the bottom of Zernike's story is this 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.'"