See- you just have to vote Republican now:

    John Kerry said what?!

    By Michelle Malkin · October 31, 2006 12:32 AM

    **10/31 7:35am updated with more reax below...

    ...909am update San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Pasadena Star News reports on the Angelides campaign event at Pasadena City College where Kerry trashed the troops..."Kerry then told the students that if they were able to navigate the education system, they could get comfortable jobs - "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq," he said to a mixture of laughter and gasps."**

A general rule of thumb regarding controversies like this is to count how many posts Michelle Malkin has about the issue, and to note that there is a positive correlation to how trivial the matter is and how many posts she has about it. At my last count, she had four on her site, two on her spin-off site Hot Air (who I still think ripped their name off from me). That would tell me that this issue would be somewhere between Cindy Sheehan and crescent-shaped 9/11 memorials and Terri Schaivo in importance, but the possibility is there for a new record.

Predictably, lamentably, the right-wing blogosphere is grievously insulted and has put the grass-roots outrage machine in high gear. Expect record levels of umbrage from all corners.

I wish Kerry had not made the remark (even though he was trying to insult the President and not the troops), but I do find it a little amusing that the people who are `upset' about this remark managed (if my memory is correct) to remain completely silent about this:

I am sure we all remember the Bush supporters wearing fake purple heart stickers at the 2004 RNC to mock Kerry's service. Additionally, I note that Malkin and company have not yet moved to condemn the treatment Vietnam war hero Jim Webb is getting at the hands of Red State, where he has been compared to John Mark Karr and today called a pervert.

For all those who say Bush is a moron let us now put to rest the idea that Kerry is smarter then the president.

My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops. The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything America, the raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches in which they have not told the American people the truth.

I'm not going to stand for it. What our troops deserve is a winning strategy, and what they deserve is leadership that is up to the sacrifice that they're making. Sadly, this is the best that this administration can do in a month when we have lost 100 young men and women who have given their lives for a failed policy. Over half the names on the Vietnam wall were put there after our leaders knew that our policy was wrong, and it was wrong that leaders were quiet then, and I'm not going to be quiet now. This is a textbook Republican campaign strategy: try to change the topic, try to make someone else the issue, try to make something else said the issue, not the policy, not their responsibility.

Like all things if he just says it was a mistake and then ignores the firestorm it will go away.

Instead he will issue silly partisan responses and this will take on a life of it's own.

Nobody misquoted him.  Why shouldn't republicans get mad about this?

Save the comments that what he says is true etc... and admit that this was a major screw-up and the words can't be taken back.  

  Rather than telling absurd lies why not defend what he said as while perhaps not being the most politic thing to say as containing more than a kernel of truth.

  It only  compounds any problem caused by the original statement to tell woefully transparent lies about what he meant.  I'd much prefer someone who has the guts to stand by an unpopular truth than a mealy-mouthed politician who lies to me when he realizes some  take offense.

From his initial statement to his defense of his remarks he was telling the truth, they were both true.

Is anyone in here gonna deny that alot of people who go into the military and die in Iraq are victims of missed opportunities or a lack of money to pursue a college education?