During the November 1 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show, co-host Dan Caplis dubiously asserted that a statement former President Bill Clinton made during a campaign speech in support of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee “suggest[ed] that those who are demanding an apology from Kerry are somehow not being religious.” Caplis made his comment during a discussion of reactions to a controversial “botched joke” that U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) made on October 30. But Clinton did not refer to Kerry anywhere in his speech.

Kerry's comment -- “if ... you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq” -- prompted attacks by President Bush and several Republicans who accused Kerry of insulting U.S. troops, according to an October 31 Associated Press article. Kerry later explained that his comment was a “botched joke” aimed at President Bush, not the troops.

Prefacing an excerpt from Clinton's November 1 speech in Memphis, Tennessee (which Colorado Media Matters accessed in the Nexis database), Caplis said he wanted to provide his listeners with “everything new on John Kerry today,” including audio clips from a “cast of characters.” Of Clinton, Caplis said, "[H]e is a Democrat, and that may be relevant to the spin he's about to offer." He then played an audio clip of Clinton saying, “It's funny when people who claim to be the followers of the God we all worship forget that he is a God of second chances and new tomorrows.” Caplis characterized this statement as an attempt by Clinton to “suggest that those who are demanding an apology from Kerry are somehow not being religious, or somehow being hypocritical when it comes to the Almighty.” Caplis added, “I mean, that's just as low as you can get.”

A transcript of Clinton's speech, however, makes clear that Clinton was not speaking directly about the Kerry controversy. Rather, he spoke of a popular perception that “there is something fundamentally amiss with the way our political system in Washington is working, or not.” Clinton went on apparently to refer to an attack ad that, as MSNBC reported, “lampoons Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr.'s reputation as a man about town.” MSNBC reported:

In the ad, a young white actress playing the stereotype of a “dumb blonde” talks about meeting Ford, a 36-year-old bachelor who is black, “at the Playboy party.” At the end of the ad, she winks and says to the camera, “Harold -- call me.”

According to MSNBC, the NAACP called the ad “a powerful innuendo that plays to pre-existing prejudices about African-American men and white women.” The AP reported that the ad was an “apparent reference to Ford's attendance at a Playboy Super Bowl party in Jacksonville, Fla., last year” and noted that Ford responded by saying, “I was there. I like football, and I like girls.”

Referring to Ford's statement, Clinton said in his Tennessee speech, “I think maybe the best line of this entire political season was when in the midst of that slimy thing they tried to do to our candidate, Harold pled guilty to liking girls and football.”

During the ensuing discussion of Clinton's comments on The Caplis & Silverman Show, co-host Craig Silverman questioned whether the Clinton quote referred to the Kerry controversy:

CAPLIS: Oh. Oh, man! That's, that's rich --

SILVERMAN: Was he talking about John Kerry there?

CAPLIS: -- that is just beautiful. I -- I, you know, it's, it's just too rich for words. I mean, come on. So, you know, he and his party, who have labeled President Bush a liar, and tried to brand him a liar, and trying to say that he lied us into a war. Now, now giving this preach about second chances and about God and forgiveness and everything else. That's, that's really rich.

[...]

SILVERMAN: I'd like to know the context of that statement. It sounded like he might've been in a church, or something like that. I don't know, was that something he said today? I didn't even hear the Kerry reference.

CAPLIS: Yeah. And by the way, you know, we didn't get a chance to talk about it because you'd been out of town, but pretty rich this weekend that all these Democratic powers show up at a, you know, church service here in Denver. An African-American church service. Sounded like a wonderful service. All these same people who just, you know, squeal like smashed cats about separation of church and state and this and that, you know, campaigning from the pulpit themselves.

From Bill Clinton's November 1 speech in Memphis, Tennessee, published by Congressional Quarterly and accessed in the Nexis database:

And I (inaudible), and, frankly, when I got up I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say. But I felt the heart of America longing for a better place. That's what I feel today. I've been to 27 states and the time this week's over, I will have been to 29 -- I'm going to 12 more states after I leave you here before I go back home and try to help Hillary in the last two days of her campaign. And I can tell you that everywhere I go, the audiences are like this and the speeches are like the one Harold gave.

We're happy to be here. We're having a good time and we're laughing. But it's a pretty quiet crowd to be less than a week from Election Day. And that's the way it is everywhere. I was in Minnesota the other night -- 900 people. They have a fabulous candidate for the Senate who's a young woman prosecutor who I believe would be joining Harold in the Senate. And after I talked for about 30 seconds, everybody got real quiet. I was in Iowa to Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. And most of the time all they think about is they're the first place you have to go if you want to run for president.

And they're a rowdy crowd -- 2,000 of them -- quiet, why? Because people know there is something fundamentally amiss with the way our political system in Washington is working, or not. They know there is something not right about the way we not only talk about the issues, but the way we talk about each other. It's funny when people who claim to be the followers of the God we all worship, forget that he is a God of second chances and new tomorrows, and always want to find some little something they can twist out of proportion.

I hope I'll be forgiven, Bishop, if I say this in your church, but I think maybe the best line of this entire political season was when, in the midst of that slimy thing they tried to do to our candidate, Harold pled guilty to liking girls and football. I want you to know one thing that I think is really important about this race, and the reason it does go beyond race and beyond region is that Harold Ford Jr.'s been your Congressman. You don't have to guess what kind of Senator he's going to be. You're not -- you know he works with all kinds of people. You know he tries to get things done. You know that he bears no personal animus toward anyone in Washington.

From the November 1 broadcast of 630 KHOW AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show:

CAPLIS: But first we wanted to get you everything new on John Kerry today, and that includes sounds from -- holy cow! What a cast of characters. Let's fire up now what John Murtha had to say today about Kerrygate. Cut 9 please, Brad.

[Audio of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)]: He should quit trying to call jokes, or tell jokes, because that, that was no joke. It was a -- it was a serious miscalculation on his part, what he said. And, and he's explained it, and I understand what he, what he was trying to get across. But, but to infer that he didn't -- he's, he's denigrated the troops is absurd.

CAPLIS: Hardly, and we'll get into that in a second. I think just basic common sense, logic, linguistics -- nice try. But how about Bill Clinton? Craig? Bill Clinton -- always a valuable perspective --

SILVERMAN: Who is he?

CAPLIS: -- on matters such as these. Well, he is a Democrat, and that may be relevant to the spin he's about to offer. Cut 10.

SILVERMAN: Coming to town tomorrow.

[Audio of Clinton]: It's funny when people who claim to be the followers of the God we all worship forget that he is a God of second chances and new tomorrows.

CAPLIS: Oh. Oh, man! That's, that's rich --

SILVERMAN: Was he talking about John Kerry there?

CAPLIS: -- that is just beautiful. I -- I, you know, it's, it's just too rich for words. I mean, come on. So, you know, he and his party, who have labeled President Bush a liar, and tried to brand him a liar, and trying to say that he lied us into a war. Now, now giving this preach about second chances and about God and forgiveness and everything else. That's, that's really rich.

SILVERMAN: I'm glad no Republican's ever called a Democratic president a liar.

CAPLIS: No, no, but that's the point. That's the point is, don't invoke God on something like this. Come on, now. John Kerry said what he said. Either say he needs to apologize or not, or if you want to go down the joke road, go down the joke road. But to try to now suggest that those who are demanding an apology from Kerry are somehow not being religious, or somehow being hypocritical when it comes to the Almighty. I mean, that's just as low as you can get.

SILVERMAN: I'd like to know the context of that statement. It sounded like he might've been in a church, or something like that. I don't know, was that something he said today? I didn't even hear the Kerry reference.

CAPLIS: Yeah. And by the way, you know, we didn't get a chance to talk about it because you'd been out of town, but pretty rich this weekend that all these Democratic powers show up at a, you know, church service here in Denver. An African-American church service. Sounded like a wonderful service. All these same people who just, you know, squeal like smashed cats about separation of church and state and this and that, you know, campaigning from the pulpit themselves.