That John Kerry lied or even that he lies constantly is a non-story. That he uses his "would have built a coalition" and didn't meet with them is only slightly more of a story. That he claims to have met with them and didn't come out publicly and condemn the war he voted FOR is the story. Let him keep his lie, ask him why he didn't try stop the war by appearing on TV and telling us what he learned at the meetings and the reasons we shouldn't have gone or get him to turn on his supposed allies and say that he didn't come out against it because he had their approval. That's a story....

Or maybe the story is that Kerry has built his campaign on allegations that Bush has lied to the American people and refuses to tell the truth, and now has been caught multiple times in lies to the American people.

Huh? Even the obviously biased Washington Times article acknowleges that Kerry met with members of the UN Security council before the Senate vote. The question is whether he met with all of them? It's not surprising that you're trying to raise such a non-issue after the shocking revelation of the latest example of more nightmarish Bush administration incompetence: 380 tons of very high explosives, of a kind favored by terrorists and insurgents, has gone missing in Iraq. The IAEA, which once monitored the site where the explosives were stored, repeatedly warned the Americans to keep watch over it, but apparently we didn't (not enough troops). Now, those explosives are probably being used in IEDs (improvised explosive devices) against our own troops.

TomJ:

Governor Weld mentioned that Kerry will lie without compunction and did so during his campaign against him. It is apparent that Kerry has been lying for a long long time. Even the Boston Globe picked up on some of his lies much earlier. There is a comparison with Bill Clinton here. Clinton's local newspaper outed him during the primaries and the MSM would not follow up. The same for Kerry. I hope we do not live to regret the MSMs lack of forthrightness on this matter.

MSM's lack of forthrightness on this issue? What planet are you living on? It is absurd that the mainstream media regularly buys into the Bush "Kerry flip flop" mantra when the president is the worst flip flopper in recent American political history. And yes, Bush did lie to the country in the lead up to the war.

Here are a couple Bush flip flops (plenty more upon request):

BUSH SUPPORTS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE... "Bush said he...favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question." [The Nation, 6/15/00, quoting the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 5/78]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20000703&s=corn

...BUSH OPPOSES A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE "I am pro-life." [Governor Bush, 10/3/00]

http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html

BUSH SPOKESMAN DENIES NEED FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE REST OF 2004... "We do not anticipate requesting supplemental funding for '04" [White House Budget Director Joshua Bolton, 2/2/04]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040202-4.html

...BUSH REQUESTS ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR IRAQ FOR 2004 "I am requesting that Congress establish a $25 billion contingency reserve fund for the coming fiscal year to meet all commitments to our troops." [President Bush, Statement by President, 5/5/04]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040505-8.html

More Bush dishonesty:

President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct inner-city program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in "compassionate conservatism."
But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program.

"I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.," Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep." "My friend John White ... asked me to come help him run the program. ... I was intrigued by John's offer. ... Now I had a chance to help people."

But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard. Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush's father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid. They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990590.htm

A Presidential election isn't, or shouldn't be, about tit for tat. Kerry flip-flopped but so did Bush, Bush lied but so did Kerry. Are we shocked that politicians sometimes change their minds? Isn't the important question WHY they changed their minds? Changing one's mind when new facts become available is certainly reasonable; changing one's mind to appeal to more voters is understandable, but is it a quality we want in a President?

What politician has never lied? I suspect that Presidents lie more than other politicians just because of the nature of the office. There are many matters that simply have to be kept secret, and sometimes that requires a cover story. The higher up you are in politics, the more likely that you will doing this. Did Bush lie to the people about why we invaded Iraq? Or was he just mistaken about Saddam having WMD's? LOTS of high-ranking political leaders around the world thought he had them and was, with or without WMD's, a threat to other nations. Whether or not Bush had inside information that made it likely to assume that Saddam did not have WMD's is just not going to be known for decades to come - the sources where that information would be contained are top-secret and therefore confidential and not to be made public.

So when all is said and done, IMHO, we need to stick with the facts that we can verify in order to balance our own prejudices. We can't verify what Bush did or didn't know leading us to invade Iraq. We can verify with whom Kerry did or did not meet from the Security Council. We can verify that explosives are missing in Iraq, we can verify who dropped the ball in guarding them, we may or may not be able to verify where they went or how they are being used.

With all available facts in hand, we can then make informed judgments on the characters of the candidates, not judgments based on pre-conceived ideas or on largely irrelevant tally sheets.

With regard to the 380 tons of very high explosives that has gone missing in Iraq, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said today:

"The president wants to determine what went wrong."

As one pundit has noted:

"This reminds me of when I wanted to know why my Palm Pilot stopped working after I dropped it in the bath tub."

Didn't our senior military leaders find it odd that they were not directed to secure the very sites over which the country was invaded?

Just imagine the kiss and tell books that will appear after many of the senior officers retire.

One wonders if they will be branded as disloyal and traitorous if they do?

Hey Tom and Semi...how are we going to spin this so it still looks bad for Bush? I mean, if the weapons were gone before our troops got to Iraq, then there is no story...get your wheels and start spinning! Be creative, guys.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Ivan, looks like you have egg on your face again. You should have known it was too good to be true coming from Drudge!

"The commander of the first unit into the area told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. 'We were still in a fight,' he said. 'Our focus was killing bad guys.' He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across." - CBS' latest press release on the missing explosives. Four times more troops. But that would have meant doing it right.

The last time the explosives were confirmed to be there by the IAEA was January of 2003. Most likely, they were gone before we even got there, and that is why the facility did not rank high on our list of places to keep secure.

Egg on my face? Heh.

The link was from NBC...Drudge just posted it. As more evidence comes out, it's plain the explosives were not there when we arrived. As Joe Lockhart said, "Well, we don't know the truth." An admission like that clearly blows holes in Kerry's "growing scandal" rhetoric.

Too bad it's too late for JFK to take it back. I mean, the script was written weeks ago between Lockhart/CBS/NY Times. Kerry can't deviate now despite KNOWING he's on the stump lying. Ridiculous.