What is it about some people

that makes them think they must embellish points they have already won with lies to drive the points in harder? While people from all walks of life do this, this behavior is most egregious in politicians, whose words are recorded and can be recalled.

In a speech delivered in Davos, Switzerland last Saturday, Senator Kerry said, “"When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy," Kerry said.... So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East — in the world, really. I've never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today." The conclusion may well be true; we may be a pariah state- he’s in a better place to judge than I am, he gets out more than I do. But he is knowingly lying when he lists the two reasons he did as the reasons the Bush administration has lost world respect.

Why do I so boldly call Senator Kerry a liar? Let’s take his first complaint: “When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto,...” While it is true that the US did cynically sign the Kyoto Accords, knowing full well that it would never be submitted to the Senate for ratification, it was Al Gore, representing the US for the Clinton administration that signed it, and it was Bill Clinton that refused to submit the treaty to congress! True, Bush could have submitted it to the senate when he took office more than a year later, but he did not do so for the same reason that Clinton did not: the senate had already passed a “sense of the senate” resolution stating that they would never ratify any climate treaty that excluded China, which Kyoto does.

This resolution, s.res.98
, was sponsored by Senator Byrd and passed by a bipartisan 95-0. There was no possibility of the Kyoto treaty being ratified under either President, and so no reason to submit it- something that Sen. Kerry knows full well, for as the link above shows, he voted for it! Sen. Kerry is blaming Bush for failing to pass a treaty that had actually failed under the previous administration- and he himself had been one of those who had killed it!

So let’s move to his second point: “when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa,...” I offer this article from The Independent , January 2, 2007: “The foreign affairs legacy of President George Bush so far speaks most loudly of terrorism, Afghanistan and the quagmire of Iraq.

But statistics just compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveal that since taking over the Oval Office, Mr Bush, partly under pressure from his Christian supporters as well as celebrities such as Bono and Bob Geldof, has dramatically increased US aid to Africa. ... The development aid is complemented by Mr Bush's rapidly growing commitment to fighting HIV and Aids in Africa, as well as malaria. In what has become the largest health initiative of his presidency - the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) - Mr Bush has pledged $15bn over five years to fight HIV in Africa and provide drugs for Aids victims.
... "Bush and his Christian supporters seldom get the credit they deserve for their role in the global fight against Aids," the Los Angeles Times noted. "US spending on the disease overseas under Bush has risen tenfold, while Christian groups have given unselfishly to the cause."...” I’ll add to that the words of Bob Geldof: “"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Mr Geldof, who organised the 1985 Live Aid fund raising concert for Ethiopia, told Britain's Guardian newspaper.”

So... the most bipartisan foreign affairs effort in 50 years- the 95-0 rejection of Kyoto during the Clinton administration- and Bush’s African AIDS initiative- virtually the only thing he’s gotten right and is universally praised for- are the only two things Sen. Kerry can think of to criticize Bush for?!? Almost any other person on the planet could have stood at that podium for an hour listing Bush’s blunders without consulting notes- but Kerry has to make things up? Can somebody explain that to me?