Soapbox

Pot calling the Kettle Black

I had to laugh at the story in today’s Columbus Dispatch, “Kerry refuses to Apologize for remarks about GOP critics”. The Republicans have had their delicate sensibilities offended by John Kerry’s aside after a speech in which he refered to “the most crooked, lying group I’ve seen.” House Speaker Dennis Hastert said it showed Kerry’s true nature as a “tax-and-spend” democrat. (At least he realizes that you have to tax if you’re going to spend! Someone tell that to the President, please! )

Indignant, the Republicans charge that Kerry’s words are “unbecoming to a presidential candidate”. What a hoot! They have apparently had a convenient memory lapse about Bush’s little open-mike gaffe in 2000 wherein he called a reporter “…a real ***hole!”

As for the accuracy of Kerry’s remark: didn’t anyone notice the story on page 4 detailing how a government employee was told he would be fired if he didn’t lie about the true cost of the President’s Medicare program? Add that to the list which includes the WOMD scam, the real cost of the war, “middle-class” tax cuts for the rich, the scientists who have been strong-armed into changing their reports to fit administration policy, a Patriot act that is blatantly unpatriotic and all the boxes and boxes of documents that Bush has had sealed, redacted or just simply refuses to turn over, I would say that “crooked and lying” is a pretty generous summary of the past 3 years in Washington.

Of course, Bush is not the first president who should thank his lucky stars that his nose doesn’t grow when he lies. Lord knows the previous administration told some whoppers~ though, as the saying goes, “when Clinton lied, nobody died.”. I don’t know Kerry’s record well: perhaps he’s been guilty of a good bit of lying himself. If he has, his statement could correctly be called hypocritical: it was NOT, however, incorrect.