'Shove It,' Heinz Kerry Says to Journalist

BOSTON, July 25 -- Teresa Heinz Kerry urged home-state delegates to the Democratic National Convention to restore a more civil tone to politics, then minutes later told a journalist to "shove it."

"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," the wife of Democratic candidate Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) told fellow Pennsylvanians on Sunday night at a Massachusetts Statehouse reception.

Minutes later, Colin McNickle, editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, questioned her on what she meant by the term "un-American," according to a tape of the encounter recorded by Pittsburgh station WTAE-TV.

Heinz Kerry said, "I didn't say that" several times to McNickle. She turned to confer with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others.

When she faced McNickle again a short time later, he continued to question her, and she replied, "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it."