Did Kerry address the $87B comment in Bush's ads?

I've seen a fair amount of references to the comment by Kerry in one of Bush's negative ads, where Kerry says something like, "I actually voted for the $87 billion dollars before I voted against it." I've never seen or heard an explanation from the Kerry camp about the comment. Does anyone have the scoop on that?

There's too much else to point out about Bush's incompetence and the damage he's done. To address a ludicrous thing like that would be to get into nit-picking with the Rovians--and that's what they want him to do, I think.

Just let them make fools of themselves. Like Kerry always says, they don't have a record to run on, they've got a record to run from. So all they can do is run this silly attack ads.

He voted for an addition to the bill that would remove part of Bush's tax cut to pay for it.

for it using money from the tax cut, they refused, and when the final vote was taken, Kerry wouldn't sign it.

Kerry did explain his vote on that show. I think he only did it because Russert asked him about it, an unstated but obvious reaction to the ad.

I agree that he should leave that stuff alone. We do not need to have Kerry in the position of responding to all their negative stuff. It puts him on the defensive, rather than the offensive.

All the while I was watching Kerry, I was comparing his interview mentally to the stumbling, bumbling, ignorant interview that shrub had with Russert before talking to Kerry.

that would have payed for the $87 billion by removing tax cuts on the super rich.

He voted for that amendment, it failed, he voted against the appropration.

It just didn't sound very good at all. I think we will look back at that as the worst week in his campaign. The best is yet to come.

No, Kerry doesn't need to be in the position of being on the defensive and answering every little negative thing said.

But when something seems to take hold, like this comment seems to have, I think it should at least be answered and not left lingering out there in people's minds. Remember the prisoner revolving door ad about Dekaukus (however you spell his name)? Dekaukus (how DO you spell his name, I wonder) didn't respond to it, and it played a not too small part in his loss of the election.

But maybe Kerry is letting it hang out there, knowing that it'd be replaced by just another negative ad. So he can wait to answer it. There's no hurry. Maybe that's his strategy.

explained away though, because it just sounds so goofy most people wouldn't listen to the actual answer. It was a bad way to say something, it won't sink his campaign.

And it was Michael Dukakis you were referring to.

Anybody with any basic analytic skills will see that they are cutting him off in the middle of a thought to make him appear riduculous.

But I would still like to see the Kerry surrogates address it agressively when the slick Bushies bring it up on the cable talk shows. . .

Franken did a really good answer for this...

Hannity:
Here’s a guy that voted for the $87 billion to fund the war before he voted against it.

Franken:
This is correct, but it’s not a flip-flop. Kerry voted for an amendment to the Iraqi appropriations bill that would have paid for the $87 billion by taking it out of the tax cut for the extremely rich. That amendment lost, 57-42, because Bush insisted that the $87 billion be added to the deficit. As we discussed with Paul Krugman last week, never in the history of this country have we had tax cuts while we were at war. Not only that, but Paul Krugman told me that he has yet to find any civilization in the history of this planet that ever had a tax cut during a war.
After the amendment went down, Kerry did vote against the final $87 billion supplemental appropriation, as a protest against the way Bush got us into the war and is conducting it. But he knew that the troops would have the support, because the bill passed 87 to 12.
You can support our troops, and still protest the president. If you can’t hold those two ideas in your head, you won’t enjoy my show, and I suggest you switch over to Rush right now.

I love Franken's response. Especially "If you can’t hold those two ideas in your head, you won’t enjoy my show, and I suggest you switch over to Rush right now."

http://www.awolcowboy.com/mp3/franken-hannity.mp3

It's a keeper. (10MB/11 minutes long)

i love al franken.