From Holden:

John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi respond to Dick Cheney:

Kerry reminds us that Bush and Cheney are cowards…

“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.”

While Pelosi reminds us of their incompetence:

“It is completely inappropriate, and dangerous, for the vice president to in effect threaten the American people, to be part of instilling fear into our country,” Pelosi said. “If the United States is attacked by terrorists before the next president is inaugurated, it will be because this president was so focused on Iraq that he was distracted from getting the job done in dealing with the clear and present danger that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden pose to our country.”

Meanwhile, the White House is in damage control mode:

In a change that highlighted the sensitivity of Cheney’s statement, the White House yesterday released a revised version of the transcript of his remarks. The official transcript, posted on the White House Web site Tuesday afternoon 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.”

In a version released Tuesday to reporters traveling with Cheney, however, the period at the end of “hit again” was removed and replaced with a comma, which linked his blunter statement to his standard stump language expressing concern that future attacks would be treated as “just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war.”

Yesterday, the transcript on the White House Web site was altered to make Cheney’s remarks one sentence. Cheney’s White House spokesman, Kevin Kellems, issued a statement saying that the first official transcript “contained a typographical error” and was an “interim draft.” “These types of corrections are not uncommon in the transcription of verbal statements,” Kellems said. “The final transcript accurately reflects the statement as delivered, which is clear when watching video of the event.”