The First Lie Is The Hardest

John Kerry made cooperation with France, Germany et al the centerpiece of his foreign policy, as described by Mr. Kerry himself when he said this:

“Secondly, I spent a lot of time before the vote looking at this issue. I went up to the United Nations at the request of some friends. And I met with the entire Security Council in a room just like this at a table like this. I spent two hours with them. (inaudible), just me and the Security Council, asking them questions. The French ambassador, “Is there a time when President Chirac would be ready to come on board? What do we need to do to move the French people to a place where they understand the stakes? Are you prepared to spend money? Do you believe we might have to use force in order to disarm Saddam Hussein? At what point would you be ready to do that?” I went through that with all of them. And I left there convinced that the U.N. was prepared to be deadly serious about this.”

Yet today the Washington Times reports:

no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.
[...]
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.

OK, so he's caught in an awfully barefaced lie. What's interesting is that Kerry has told this tale many times already.

Note the dates:

Event	Elapsed
John Kerry, speaking to the United States Senate, 9 October 2002 --
John Kerry, speaking to the Boston Globe, 10 December 2003 --	15 months
John Kerry, speaking to campaign rallies as reported in the New Yorker, 19 July 2004 --	8 months
John Kerry, speaking to the Unity: Journalists of Color Conference, 5 August 2004 --	1 month
5. John Kerry, speaking to the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 26 September 2004 --	1 month

This list is probably not exhaustive, but the pattern seems clear: try it out and see if the mainstream media will call you on it. If not, forge ahead. It gets easier every time.