My Aisling

Kerry lies - it's amazing ...

I have a chance to talk with a lot of young people as a college professor. I find that many times they express themselves in extremes - I hate this or that, that person is a liar, that person a bigot, and so on. I take the time to help them to step back a little and review the facts, to temporarily suspend opinion (both theirs and others).

We usually find that the facts are either hard or soft - hard facts are indisputable, soft facts (like statistics) are open to manipulation. When we then re-introduce opinions, it typically becomes clear that many opinions are ill-informed, conclusory, even unsupportable.

A student told me that W personally scheduled an airliner to whisk OBL's family out of America on September 11, 2001. I was unsure whether to hug him and tell him everything would be ok, or slap him and tell him to snap out of it.

When a politician is called a liar, it is typically very easy to establish that it is merely a difference in reliance upon soft facts coupled with a difference in opinion.

But, oh my, I am grappling greatly with whether Kerry is a liar or not. What a condemnation of a person. But read the first entry in this article.

Kerry says he voted for a piece of legislation. He didn't - voted against it. But it made a politically important statement to that audience to voice his approval. Faced with the facts, his staff could say no more than that he supported an "earlier, more pure form" of the legislation. What does that mean, exactly?!?!?? Once again, Kerry takes credit for supporting the substance of a law he voted against - because, he claims, his vote against it was based upon principle ... the way in which the law was discussed or passed was wrong.

Perhaps it is better said that Kerry is just not ready for prime time. Call it McAuliffe's Revenge. Kerry will twist in the wind, any DNC candidate would twist in the wind for the eight months Terry caused to occur between selection and election. Is that his present to Hillary?