User Panel
Posted: 10/24/2004 8:03:04 PM EDT
www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041024-110609-9428r.htm
Security Council members deny meeting Kerry By Joel Mowbray SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES 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. An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred. At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council. "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," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein." 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. When reached for comment last week, an official with the Kerry campaign stood by the candidate's previous claims that he had met with the entire Security Council. 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." 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." Asked whether the international body had any records of Mr. Kerry sitting down with the whole council, a U.N. spokesman said that "our office does not have any record of this meeting." A U.S. official with intimate knowledge of the Security Council's actions in fall of 2002 said that he was not aware of any meeting Mr. Kerry had with members of the panel. An official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations remarked: "We were as surprised as anyone when Kerry started talking about a meeting with the Security Council." Jean-David Levitte, then France's chief U.N. representative and now his country's ambassador to the United States, said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kerry did not have a single group meeting as the senator has described, but rather several one-on-one or small-group encounters. He added that Mr. Kerry did not meet with every member of the Security Council, only "some" of them. Mr. Levitte could only name himself and Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain as the Security Council members with whom Mr. Kerry had met. One diplomat who met with Mr. Kerry in 2002 said on the condition of anonymity that the candidate talked to "a few" ambassadors on the Security Council. 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. At a New Mexico rally last month, Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush will "do anything he can to cover up the truth." At what campaign aides billed as a major foreign-policy address, Mr. Kerry said at New York University last month that "the first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people." In recent months, Mr. Kerry has faced numerous charges of dishonesty from Vietnam veterans over his war record, and his campaign has backtracked before from previous statements about Mr. Kerry's foreign diplomacy. For example, in March, Mr. Kerry told reporters in Florida that he'd met with foreign leaders who privately endorsed him. "I've met with foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly," he said. "But, boy, they look at you and say: 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy.' " But the senator refused to document his claim and a review by The Times showed that Mr. Kerry had made no official foreign trips since the start of 2002, according to Senate records and his own published schedules. An extensive review of Mr. Kerry's domestic travel schedule revealed only one opportunity for him to have met foreign leaders here. After a week of bad press, Kerry foreign-policy adviser Rand Beers said the candidate "does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements." The Democrat has also made his own veracity a centerpiece of his campaign, calling truthfulness "the fundamental test of leadership." Mr. Kerry closed the final debate by recounting what his mother told him from her hospital bed, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity." In an interview published in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Kerry was asked what he would want people to remember about his presidency. He responded, "That it always told the truth to the American people." |
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not "big" enough, not "clear-cut" enough to sway the average idiot american voter.
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I can't see this story having any serious negative repercussions for the Kerry campaign. It's nothing new.
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The reaction will be glossed over that he used distortions to bash Bush over foreign policy.
He lied. Pure and simple. He did not have the meeting he claimed. CRC |
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Yup, he will doublespeak his way out of it. He will say he talked to them on the phone, and spent hours doing it. But hey, if they decide to stone him, that's ok, too. |
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Who says that there's only ONE "October Surprise"?
If Rove is worth his salt, we'll have a new story every other day. Or, at least timed to maximize the media cycles... |
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Demands for clarity. Reactions to his reactions, from "foreign leaders". We'll see. If this doesn't stick, the next one might, or the next one...... |
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Thanks for keeping us up to date, seriously. |
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The MSM will make more of the guy who set the world record for moonwalking, then this story. For the next 250 hours, they are going to be so pro Kerry, it will make you sick (more so then normal).
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Well will this hurt him on the world stage?
Will countries now say they don't prefer Kerry cause he lies about them? CRC |
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It's not going to be a picture of him pissing on a flag. AND, it's not about Vietnam. It's NOW. Wait.... |
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What needs to be done with this story - break it down to simple, repetative words:
"John Kerry Lied to America." That's the only way I can see much of an impact. Other than that, Repubs already know JFK is a liar and the Dems don't care. |
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i haven't prayed in years, but i might start now. |
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He will have to explain this.
That is a given. But what happens next depends on his explanation. CRC |
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Watch both sides for the next few days. They will try to stop the media from getting into a self-determined pace. IF one network sees another getting traction with a story, the other will feel compelled to jump on board. Greed. Market share. |
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Rush already debunked the "I've talked with foreign leaders" comment months ago. Careful listening to the original comment made it clear that he was not even talking about foreign leaders, just leaders of various groups here in the U.S. But Kerry let the story go on as if he had meant "foreign leaders" 'cause he liked the sound of it.
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Liar, liar pants on fire!!!!
Oh yes! The "undecideds" hate being lied to, that is why they disliked Bush in the 2nd debate "supposedly", becasue of what he said about wmd's.Wait till DU rummages through this. |
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The best October Surprise is not the one that goes over the top... but I understand what Cincinatus is saying... If there is a steady increase in weight, eventually a straw will break the camel's back. That would be an ingenious way to do it if done right. If something new comes out every day and the Kerry campaign has to spend each day challenging some new charge, they can never get on message and the last impression that the electorate will have will be Kerry constantly having to defend his honesty.
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Found it a few minutes ago myself. Doesn't sound like much of a big deal. We already have him on record doing worse stuff than this. I doubt it'll go for more then a day or two.
ETA: If they have enough stuff like this to break one every day or two, it might be a workable strategy. Even so, I hope they can whip up something more interesting than this. |
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kerry will SQUIRM out of it somehow.
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That's a different "foreign leader" story. That's the story where he claims they want him to win. Where he suggests he might have bumped into them in NYC restaurants. THAT is a completely different story. Forget that. |
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yes, and it will all be well-documented in your electoral maps. |
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THAT'S IT? Fucking lame. We need him raping pre-teen boys. Even then, most of Kerry's supporters would still vote for him.
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+1 |
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Wow. This is the Great October Surprise?
I was expecting something like: "IN RELATED NEWS, ALIENS EXISIST!" |
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You'll likely see an ad that boils down the story to "John Kerry Lied To America" and finishes with Kerry saying, "integrity integrity integrity" and finished with an announcer saying "we couldn't agree more Senator" |
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1158623&mesg_id=1158623
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But that incident is also quoted in your linked story above--near the end. |
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The latest Zogby has Bush clearly ahead in Ohio AND Florida.
That makes for over 300 EVs for Bush. That news comes out in the Morning. So does this. Will the Kerry Camp spend time debunking these polls, or the story that destroys their candidate's credibility on foreign relations (and integrity)? |
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I agree, if you have to read more than 1 paragraph to understand, most people let it slide. |
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win florida and it's pretty much over, right? |
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Neither Cin,... they will be pushing the NYT's story and figure if they ignore the story about them it will go away.
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DUers have no morals. They'd rather climb a tree and lie than tell the truth on the ground. CRC |
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I bet Dan Rather told you that. |
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Now THIS is some good news! |
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One more example of the fact that if Kerry was to say the sky was blue, I'd go outside to look.
I hope to God that the few people that haven't made up their mind can put the pieces together by Nov 2. Kerry lies nearly every time he opens his mouth. Anyone that takes 30 minutes on the Net can discover for themselves that NOTHING he says means a damn thing because it's subject to change based on the next poll or group of voters he's trying to swing. Yeah, all pols do this shit but Kerry is just Pathological about it. NOTHING he says has any meaning because it's ALL suspect. All it takes is someone doing a little digging and you'll find he has 5 different statements on the same subject over time. There are only three constants with regard to Kerry: 1. He's a dyed in the wool socialist that thinks he knows what's best for you. 2. He's a elitiest prick that has no clue as to how the typical person in this country lives. 3. His voting record in Congress shows him to be an INCREDIBLY dangerous man to this nation. |
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Here's their first reaction:
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They live their lives in denial... I've learned to not make any assumptions as to their behavior... as soon as the fist board leader states an opinion in a thread they all line up like good little sheep and follow the shepherd... that board is the biggest stroke-fest I've ever seen... But they are entertaining. Keep in mind these people think the Swiftboat Ads are all lies and have had no effect on the electorate... despite them turning a large number of vets from supporting Kerry to supporting Bush. |
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Kerry = liar Cliffnoted for avg American voter. |
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Kerry lied about a meeting - big deal. "Bush lied, men died" Next?
I like it. |
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LOL... I said a few posts above that Kerry would likely
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Hell I thought he was seen using Hunts kethup on his burger.
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