Posted on 03/16/2004 8:06:49 AM PST by demlosers
White House spokesman Scott McClellan continued to question the credibility of likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) on Monday by alleging he purposefully lied when he stated that several foreign leaders support his campaign for president.
Last week, Kerry revealed that some world leaders support his bid for president and told him, "You've got to beat this guy," referring to President George W. Bush.
McClellan challenged Kerry to specifically name the world leaders who hope Bush will be defeated in November.
"Either he is straightforward and states who they are, or the only conclusion one can draw is that he is making it up to attack the president," McClellan asserted at the daily White House briefing.
Talon News reported on Monday that Kerry has been asked to name these foreign leaders by both a voter in Pennsylvania as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell in the past few days.
Kerry has adamantly refused to reveal who these world leaders are, claiming their comments were made in confidence to be kept confidential.
Nevertheless, Kerry responded to the continued criticism about this on Monday when he told reporters that Republicans are only using this to avoid dealing with the real issues in the campaign.
"They're trying to change the subject from jobs, health care, the environment and Social Security," Kerry surmised. "They don't have a campaign so they're trying to divert it."
McClellan three times during the press conference uttered that Kerry was "making it up" about his world leader support.
"This is not the first time he has refused to back up his assertions," McClellan said, referring to Kerry's history of making up stories to fit his political need.
For example, Talon News reported last November that Kerry cited a nonexistent poll in a presidential debate in Boston that he said showed him defeating Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) by double-digits in an alleged presidential poll.
However, the Kerry campaign was never able to find the poll he was referring to, and a campaign staffer later admitted that Kerry had "misspoke" about the poll.
McClellan said Kerry owes the American people the truth about which foreign leaders say they support him.
"I think that if Senator Kerry is going to say he has support from foreign leaders then he needs to be straightforward with the American people and say who it is that he has spoken with and who it is that supports him," McClellan concluded.
In a related story, a Boston Globe reporter who reported on Kerry's support from "foreign leaders" said he "screwed up" and should have transcribed the words as "more leaders."
"I mistranscribed a key word," Boston Globe political reporter Patrick Healy told The Drudge Report.
He added, "Listening to the audio recorder now, in the quiet of my house, I hear 'more leaders' and I am certain that 'more leaders' is what Senator Kerry said."
Healy said that he is "very sorry" for the mistake.
Nevertheless, although Healy now says his transcription was incorrect, Kerry has not once rebutted that he said "foreign leaders."
This is pure Bravo Sierra.
Did you notice that it took them almost a week to come up with this?
"I forgot..."
You are missing the entire point. Kerry is being proved a liar; and fabricates lies. Do you want another Clinton in the White House?
That's got to be the funniest line of the whole campaign, so far. Kerry, changing the subject, by accusing the Bush campaign of changing the subject.
Only the President and his duly powered agents in the Department of State can conduct foreign policy. And garnering support from foreign leaders is not only foreign policy, it is also inviting foreign powers to interfere in our sovereign process of determining our government (undoubtably learned from Clinton's success).
That's what Kerry should be getting grilled on. Then he would be forced into either admitting treason, or of lying to the public. Of course, he won't admit either. But more people will start drawing the correct conclusion.
Affirm on that. If he was misquoted, Kerry could have easily defused this matter a week ago. Now he's insulting voters who ask about this at town-hall meetings. Worst of all, he's traveling to Spain to visit the new Socialist terrorist-appeaser PM.
Kerry thinks that this will permanently defuse the lie. He will have looked one world leader in the eyes (or is it a one-world leader) and received support.
This is a big waste of Kerry's time to perform damage control. Also, it links him with Socialists who are weak on the WOT. It's just a publicity-stunt, like when Jesse Jackson would go to enemy countries to negotiate (totally illegally) for the USA. But it will hurt him more than help him. It just confuses the issue, counter-punching without clarifying.
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