Underlining the crazed state of the spin-infused US democratic system, John Kerry has handed the Republicans a sweet, sweet gift ahead of the polls next week. Playing into the image of Democrats as elite, patronising and secretly loathesome of your average Joe citizen, he implied that an average academic record could land school-leavers in Iraq. While I'm sure this is true, we're not really in the sphere of facts here, and it was a pretty idiotic thing to say, particularly at a political rally: "Kerry disprespects US troops", etc. As expected, shock-jocks the country over have gone into hyper-drive, and finally Bush can go on the attack, and ignore complicate questions re real issues like the war itself, and climate change. Kerry!! No! Have you gone and messed it all up?