Drudge has a preliminary transcript of Sen. John Kerry's appearance this morning on Good Morning America, where he was asked whether or not he ever admitted throwing his own war medals over the White House fence during a Vietnam war protest:

charlie, i stood up in front of the nation. there were dozens of cameras there, television cameras, there were -- i don't know. 20, 30 still photographers. thousands of people and i stood up in front of the country, reached into my shirt, visibly for the nation to see, and took the ribbons off my chest, said a few words and threw them over the fence. the file footage, the reporter there from the ""boston globe,"" everybody got it correctly. and i never asserted otherwise. what i said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable . senator simmington asking me questions in the committee hearing, look ad at the ribbons and said what are those medals? the u.s. navy pam let calls the medals, we referred to them it is a symbols, representing medals, ribbons, countless veterans through the ribbon -- threw the ribbons back. everybody did. veterans threw back dog tags. they threw back photographs, they th rew back their 14's. there are photographs of a pile of all of those things collected on the steps of the capitol. so the fact is that i have -- i have been accurate precisely about what took place. and i am the one who later made clear exactly what happened. i mean, this is a controversy that the republicans are pushing , the republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me. and this comes from a president and a republican party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the national guard. i'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: senator, i was there 33 years ago and i saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later -

KERRY: no, you didn't see me throw th. charlie, charlie, you are wrong. that's not what happened. i threw my ribbons across. all you have to do -

It goes downhill from there.

The real sign of trouble is when Kerry says, "this comes from a president who can't even show or prove that he showed up for duty in the national guard."

Previously on the Bush-National Guard issue he said, "You know, it's not an issue that I've chosen to make an issue, and it's, I think-it's not what I'm running my campaign on."

If nothing else, it looks like Kerry just lost a week of campaigning to this, as he tries to re-re-explain his remarks on the medals.

A Roundup of Response:

The Curmudgeons' Corner: "Here is Kerry being his Clinton best. 'I did not say I had trajectoral relations with my medals...I had trajectoral relations with my ribbons.'"

Wizbang:

Kerry is finding himself with a growing credibility problem. 30 years later, the ownership of the medals probably doesn't matter much to most voters. However, the fact Kerry can't keep his stories straight does.

Glenn Reynolds: "It's pretty devastating."

Undercaffeinated:

All Kerry has to do is say he misspoke at the interview; it was his mistake for failing to differentiate between medals and ribbons. Instead he goes on an illogical rampage. This is how a smart man with a day to prepare responds to concrete charges...

LaShawn Barber: "Unfortunately for him, he's left a verifiable trail of lies."

Vox Populi:

If his performance on Good Morning America is even close to typical, he'll make the Dukakis drubbing look respectable.

Elsewhere, Rasmussen Reports' daily tracking poll has President Bush jumping to his biggest lead over Kerry in more than a month and a half.