"America deserves a truthful leader!"

John Kerry political cartoon.

Mar. 26, 2004...

Sen. John Kerry’s campaign continues to have a three-pronged approach in its attack on the President: jobs and the issue of outsourcing; Iraq and it hurt the War on Terrorism ; and the President’s credibility.

Howard Dean on “McNeal-Leaher News Hour” said that the number one issue in this campaign might very well be the President’s credibility. When a President loses his credibility the public will vote him out of office, Dean said.

Another example of the Kerry campaign credibility attacks came while President Bush was in Boston, according to the Washington Times. The President pointed out that Kerry once supported a 50-cent raise in gas taxes.

"He supported a 50-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline. He wants you to pay the extra money at the pump, but he wouldn't even throw in a free car wash," President Bush said at his fund-raiser in Boston.

According to the Times the Kerry campaign responded as follows:

The Kerry camp immediately released a carefully worded statement that said the senator "has never sponsored or voted for a gas-tax increase of that magnitude."

"Sen. Charles Robb introduced legislation in 1993 that phased in a 50-cent increase. John Kerry did not vote for or co-sponsor this bill," according to the e-mail, titled "Misleading America Again."

But the Bush-Cheney team responded with a release titled "The Raw Deal," citing a 1994 Boston Globe article in which Mr. Kerry said a rating by a budget watchdog group "doesn't reflect my $43 billion package of cuts or my support for a 50-cent increase in the gas tax."

Another credibility attack is to claim that the President is out of touch with America. The President while in Massachusetts spoke of his support for job training. Kerry responded with the following statement:

"Never has the Bush administration increased the resources going toward programs for people who have lost jobs and need retraining to find new ones," said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Kathy Roeder.

Look for the Bush campaign to point out that the Kerry campaign statement isn’t true.

Kerry made the attack personal at the Washington, D.C. Unity Dinner when he said that the country deserves a leader who “tells the truth.”

Kerry’s credibility gap seems to be larger than the President’s. An example is when Kerry continued to deny that he was in Kansas City in 1971 during a leadership meeting of Veterans Against the War where plans were discussed to kill U.S. Senators. He previously claimed to have already quit the Veterans Against the War group before its ‘kill U.S. Senators’ Kansas City meeting, saying he had resigned during the group’s St. Louis meeting held earlier in 1971. When FBI files proved Kerry was at the ‘kill U.S. Senators’ Kansas City meeting, Kerry reversed his statement and brushed it off by saying he had merely experienced ‘how memory works.’

It seems that discussions of killing U.S. Senators would be more memorable than that…

Kerry’s charges against the President lying and misrepresenting his votes have not held up either. Kerry is in danger of losing his credibility before the campaign even gets started.