OK, OK, this is my third diary today, but I don't post them too often, and this was just too much to resist posting. I checked the open thread and the diaries and saw nothing on this.
The Post reports that Kerry has called Cheney's remarks from yesterday "outrageous and shameful," woop woop, but the kicker is in the end of the story:
The White House appears to be concerned enough about Cheney's remarks that it engaged in some strategic editing of the transcript.
The official White House transcript, posted on the White House Web site Tuesday and e-mailed to reporters, said: "[I]t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again."
But in a version of the remarks later distributed to reporters traveling with Cheney, the period at the end of "hit again" was removed and replaced with a comma, which changed the meaning of the incendiary charge by linking it to Cheney's less inflammatory concern that future attacks would be treated as "just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war."
After inquiries about why the change was made, the transcript on the White House Web site was altered to make Cheney's remarks all one sentence.
Go figure that they would do such "selective editing."
As for Kerry's response, the Post has this:
Kerry Rips Cheney Statement
Edwards Urges Bush to Disavow Remark on Terror Risk
By Spencer S. Hsu and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 9, 2004; Page A06
Democrat John F. Kerry yesterday denounced as "outrageous and shameful" Vice President Cheney's statement that Americans risk another terrorist attack if President Bush is not reelected, as congressional Democrats assailed the credibility of a leading administration voice on national security.
Kerry, interviewed in Minnesota by a local television station, said Cheney's statement made it clear that the president and the vice president "will say anything and do anything in order to get elected."
"It is outrageous and shameful to make the war on terror an instrument of their politics," Kerry said. "I defended this country when I was a young man, and they chose not to. And I will defend this country as president of the United States."
Link
I hope this will put at ease those who thought Kerry would let this go. Apparently Tweety was making hay tonight over the remark and said Kerry was done if he let it go.