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Heinz Kerry apologizes to the first lady

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The wife of Sen. John Kerry apologized Wednesday for questioning whether first lady Laura Bush had ever held a real job as an adult.

The comment by Teresa Heinz Kerry, which brought scorn from the Bush campaign, was made in a USA Today interview.

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"Well, you know I don't know Laura Bush," she said when asked how she would be a different first lady. "But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job -- I mean, since she's grown up. So her validation comes from important things, but different things."

The Bush campaign said Laura Bush had been a school teacher, a librarian and had raised her children.

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children," Kerry said in a later statement. "I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as first lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

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Kerry is a philanthropist and heir to the Heinz foods fortune.

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