Lies, damned lies...

and the seemingly inexhautible string of Republican lies about John Kerry's voting record catch the attention of Fred Kaplan at Slate.

Kaplan takes a detailed look at the broadsides launched by Bushco at Kerry's defense and intelligence votes, and find them sorely lacking in accuracy, let alone substance.

After quoting then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney bemoaning the Congress' refusal to make the cuts he wanted, complaining that "Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements," Kaplan continues:

"In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty." (my emphasis)

And the infamous charge by RNC Chair Ed Gillespie that Kerry tried to gut the intelligence budget? Again, Kaplan offers the facts of the matter.

"The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues."

The whole article is indispensible for the well armed Kerry advocate.