Easy way for Kerry to defuse this stupid controversy:

[brentspeak]

Hold a five-minute press conference, with the following words on a screen projector behind him:

""I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq." - Senator John Kerry

And explain that those words are a routine joke he's told several times in the past, but that yesterday he slipped up the words and simply left the "us" out of it. Or even better, present a video of him telling that joke -- correctly -- a few times, just to show that yesterday's slip-up was exactly that: a slip-up.

Anybody who sees 20 seconds of Kerry telling the joke correctly will automatically understand that he didn't mean what he appeared to have said with his slip-up yesterday, and will file it away in his or her mind as simply much-ado-about-nothing.

John, do it first thing tomorrow morning, and get it out of the way.

[Straight Shooter]

1. Do that , and then follow-up with video of bush's WMD comedy routine.

The contrast is mind-boggling.

"Those WMD must be here somewhere." Hahahahahahahahaha.

Yeah, it's a g'damn riot, it's so funny.

[Ignacio Upton]

2. Is there footage of him telling the correct joke?

If so then he should send it to the MSM asap!

[kentuck]

3. I knew what he meant without the "us" in the joke...

I knew he wasn't talking about the troops. I knew he was talking about George W Bush. After all, it is Bush that is stuck in Iraq. The troops will finally come home one way or another but Bush will still be there.

[tblue]

6. The media is playing the clip out of context, in the most damning way

What a buncha bull! Let's take a page out of the Repug playbook and just ignore whatever they say. They demand an apology? Yeah, so do we. So do 3000 American troops and 650,000 Iraqis. Bring it the f**k on!

[babylonsister]

4. Kerry has already diffused it. Now the rethugs have to deal.

Or not.

[brentspeak]

8. If it was defused, the talking heads wouldn't still be jabbering on about it

A quick, understandable, proper explanation would stymie any further talk about the alleged "slur".

[Robbien]

5. The GOP needs this story to get their base all fired up to GOTV

No matter what Kerry does, this story will be pushed and pushed. On November 7th it will fade into the ether.

[tblue]

7. Yeah, there's really no there there. And surprise surprise, Kerry's not on ANY ballot

[soothsayer]

9. I know! Everyone's acting like it's * vs Kerry all over again. Silly!