No, the RNC and Bush Cheney 04 will not reply to this based on their miserable track record. It's already too late, they should have done that last night after NBC came out.
Give credit to the old Clinton people that are now running the Kerry campaign. Their war room is ready to respond and take advantage knowing that the Republicans will still be thinking about a response, if any, while the world has moved on to other things. Most voters will only remember the original NY Times claim and the lying Kerry ad. Rove is probably producing an ad on the increase in salmon spawning in the Northwest under the Bush administration.
It appears that the strategy is to not respond to every desperate charge, only to the ones that need instant rebuke. Why bother, when the internals show us up and in a comfortable position?
When this is all over, many of us will reflect on how smart Carl Rove was to take the high road when appropriate and let the hate-mongers string themselves up, time and again.