HOFFA IS SORRY -- WHAT HE MEANT TO SAY WAS "DON'T RETREAT, RELOAD"

No, wait -- he meant to say, "We came unarmed -- this time." Or that union members consider Republicans "treasonous" and think it would be appropriate to "treat 'em pretty ugly." Or no, I've got it -- he meant to put a map up on the Internet with their districts marked by crosshairs.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the story:

...The right wing blogs and media have been going ballistic all day about the latest outrageous outrage, screaming about a speech by Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr., at a Labor Day event in Detroit, at which President Obama also appeared.

The reason they’re all worked up into a righteously indignant lather: Fox News aired a flat-out dishonest, edited version of Hoffa’s speech....

And there is another version of this edited clip, with an even more blatant cut, here at RealClearPolitics.

This is how RealClearPolitics reported the quote:

"We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war," Jimmy Hoffa Jr. said to a heavily union crowd.

"President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong," Hoffa added.

...An actual, unedited transcript of Hoffa’s remarks:

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war.

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. And President Obama, we want one thing: jobs, jobs, jobs... That’s what we’re going to tell him. He’s gonna be ... and when he sees what we're doing here, he will be inspired. But he needs help. And you know what? Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, let's take these son of a bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.

But it's probably not worth pointing this out, because you know the White House is going to bow and scrape and apologize for what everyone now thinks Hoffa said, and you know that this will be used by Republicans to justify the total non-cooperation they were planning anyway, and nothing good can come of it, because union guys are only allowed to talk tough when they're backing Richard Nixon or some subsequent Republican. This simply isn't allowed. And fact can't even be allowed to supplant rumor.