Res Publica 2005

People who have followed this campaign all along know that John Kerry has trouble with the truth. Oh, he may call it "nuance," but he has be caught flipping things he said around and around many many times. He has a long history of playing around and exaggerating the truth. Even if you discount the Swift Boat Vets, he did claim he was in Cambodia when he was not. Even his recent attempts to show that he is a hunter is a mistruth when you see his voting record where he voted to ban semi-automatic shotguns and centerfire ammunition.

But this one especially is a great example of Kerry's playing with the truth. During the second debate, Kerry said: "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."

But it turns out that this was a falsehood, another case of Kerry playing wild and fast with the truth once again.

The Washinton Times reports:

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.
The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.
Ambassador Andres Franco, the permanent deputy representative from Colombia during its Security Council membership from 2001 to 2002, said, "I never heard of anything."
Although Mr. Franco was quick to note that Mr. Kerry could have met some members of the panel, he also said that "everything can be heard in the corridors."
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico's then-ambassador to the United Nations, said: "There was no meeting with John Kerry before Resolution 1441, or at least not in my memory."
All had vivid recollections of the time frame when Mr. Kerry traveled to New York, as it was shortly before the Nov. 7, 2002, enactment of Resolution 1441, which said Iraq was in "material breach" of earlier disarmament resolutions and warned Baghdad of "serious consequences as a result of its continued violations."
Stefan Tafrov, Bulgaria's ambassador at the time, said he remembers the period well because it "was a very contentious time."
After conversations with ambassadors from five members of the Security Council in 2002 and calls to all the missions of the countries then on the panel, The Times was only able to confirm directly that Mr. Kerry had met with representatives of France, Singapore and Cameroon.
In addition, second-hand accounts have Mr. Kerry meeting with representatives of Britain.

There's more. Meeting with some is not meeting with all

And now there is the inevitable nuancing, dancing back from the truth once he got caught.

First:
But after being told late yesterday of the results of The Times investigation, the Kerry campaign issued a statement that read in part, "It was a closed meeting and a private discussion."

Which implies that those who denied the meeting lied.

But to wiggle around that:

A Kerry aide refused to identify who participated in the meeting.
The statement did not repeat Mr. Kerry's claims of a lengthy meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council, instead saying the candidate "met with a group of representatives of countries sitting on the Security Council."

But he already said he had! Which is it?

And do we really want a president whose word can never be trusted?