There was some hyping of a forthcoming Washington Times story by Joel Mobray last night. The line was that it would be a Kerry killer. When it came out that it was another "Kerry is a Liar" story, the blogiticals shrugged saying "nothing new here" and pooh-poohed its effect.

While I did the second, I did not do the other two. I think it will have some impact. Here's why. The blogiticials are judging this one more on their own knowledge than on public's knowledge of instances of Kerry's lying. In fact, from my own causual conversations with those not constantly 'tuned-in', there are not many specific examples of widely known Kerry lying. This one, about a meeting which didn't take place with people who were not there, is a good one and quite specific and clear.

Two things may give this less of an impact. One is if it is limited to the Washington Times reader demographic (in other words, if it not picked up by regional papers and not put on the major TV news, the latter which is a pipe dream.) The second, if it is subsequently presented with a better punch than this article is.

Don't mind me, I think it is a good article and I think highly of Joel Mobray. But to the public at large, Joel Mobray is just another name and the story is written just like all the others, i.e., with too much of Joel's structuring of the Kerry's words. If there is one thing people are suspicious of, it's quotes that are paraphrased. It immediatley raises 'taken out of context' red flag. If someone is going to point out a lie and do it boldly and clearly, which paragraph do would better show it? This one:

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

Or this one? (hat tip Polipundit)

“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.”

The "Never happened." and "We weren't there." daggers would have caused much more injury if used against the second paragraph, IMHO. Although Joel's paraphrasing is much more a factor of space limitatons, alot was lost because of it.