The crumbling GoOPer republican candidates and their minions just can't help but to diminish the sacrifices of America soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq when it serves their ends...

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has never been one to linger too long shaking hands. He is a deliberative man, who campaigns in short bursts, and enjoys his private time as much as anyone. So when he finished speaking here Wednesday night, in the cramped back room of a restaurant, he never stopped working his way to the exit door. ...
...
Nearly a dozen of his potential supporters remained, however. They circled around Thompson's state chairman, Rep. Steve King, the man who just might lift the struggling campaign to a halfway decent finish in the nation's first caucus state. A popular state conservative, King was holding court, as he often does, on the issue of illegal immigration, which he speaks of as a crisis on par with the war in Iraq.

"The casualties in America are greater on average by far than they are in Iraq," he announced, citing dubious back-of-the-envelope estimates about the number of American homicides committed by people without citizenship.

If any Democrat had made a similar statement you know that the wingnut manufactured outrage machine would be howling at full volume and the candidate responsible would be conducting a ceremonial and very public shit-canning of some flunky followed by endless media "mea culpas".

It will be interesting to see if Thompson says anything about King's assertion, but given that he's running on the dog-whistle politics of immigration, magic 8-ball says "doubtful".