« Which President? Which Worldview | Main | It’s Too Close to Scrape (Toast-O-Meter) »

Security Council members deny meeting Kerry

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. [more].

According to the article, here is what Kerry said during the second Presidential debate:

"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable."

More from the Washington Times article:

The revelation that Mr. Kerry never met with the entire U.N. Security Council could be problematic for the Massachusetts senator, as it clashes with one of his central foreign-policy campaign themes — honesty.

[snip]

Mr. Kerry closed the final debate by recounting what his mother told him from her hospital bed, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity."

This is apparently the news that was referred to earlier by a variety of bloggers and in particular Powerline (Update: here is The Big Trunk's confirmation). Bill at INDC, among many others, has also been posting about this here and here.

So Kerry has been caught again. Will this make any difference to his supporters? Probably not. Will it sway independents and those who are undecided? Perhaps, if the story gets any mainstream press ...

Wizbangblog points out, "With the media in his corner on matters like this, Kerry is like Teflon." BlogsforBush adds, "...not the shocker I thought it would be. My original skepticism appears to have been the appropriate instinct. Kerry being a liar is nothing new. Kerry's campaign is sinking on its own without this story."

Rick at the Stones Cry Out summarizes Kos' response. Interesting: "Remember - KOS spun this BEFORE he got to read the actual story."

Updates:

Several well known bloggers have expressed their lack of excitement in the Times story. TruthLaidBear has a must read post explaining this reaction. He states,

I'll admit, my first reaction was a bit of a yawn myself. But then I thought about why that was, and I think it comes down to the fact that I expect Kerry to exaggerate and outright lie when it serves his political purpose of the moment. But the fact that he's a serial exaggerator is exactly why this story should receive attention, not why it should be shrugged off.

With expectations low for MSM coverage, he calls bloggers and blog readers to action,"So let's make sure that everyone we possibly can reach knows that [Kerry lied in a crucial discussion]."

Nick at Patriot Paradox adds more and [following the Washington Times] concludes, "The revelation that Mr. Kerry never met with the entire U.N. Security Council could be problematic for the Massachusetts senator, as it clashes with one of his central foreign-policy campaign themes — honesty."

I generally appreciate Captain Ed's political analysis and his statements about this issue is no exception. He writes,

It appears that Kerry won't even try to put America's actions to a "global test": he'll just ask a couple of minor nations (one just a city-state) and France before knuckling under. This episode underscores Kerry's odd personality deficits of self-aggrandizement, exaggeration, and defeatism. In any other campaign, his lies would bury him, but I suspect that this will only cost him a couple of points in the final week. Hopefully, that will be enough.

As I've considered this breaking story and commentaries from others it occurs to me that its benefit will not only be the obvious exposure of Kerry's bold dishonesty but also the placing of Kerry's campaign on the defensive during a critical time period. If this story gets enough attention, precious publicity will be lost as Kerry attempts to spin it.

The most comprehensive analysis of the story that I've seen comes from Redstate - Trevino certainly has a command of the facts. He references consistent statements by Kerry, made over the last two years, that have now been shown to be false.

Bottom line, folks: John Kerry has spent the past two years repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over again the lie that he had a single sit-down meeting with the United Nations Security Council prior to the Iraq war resolution vote. The reality is that he met with a mere handful of Security Council constituency personnel -- members of four, perhaps five, and certainly fewer than half of the delegations -- in scattered, ad hoc encounters over a vague period of time.

This isn't mere exaggeration. It's an outright lie -- by this standard, I've convened meetings of the Security Council -- and as I said, it matters. For this is no mere game of rhetorical gotcha. Rhetorical gotcha is digging up a film clip of John Edwards at a function with the Vice President; it is calling the President on a regrettable lapse of memory, and pretending this constitutes a serious critique of either. We can expect honest Democrats who reveled in these examples to feel sorrow and shame at the exposure of John Kerry. We can also expect this demographic to be vanishingly small.

Posted by tim at October 24, 2004 9:41 PM

Articles Related to Politics: