What's so galling about the Bush attempt to turn Kerry's phrase "global test" into "we have to get permission from France before putting on our shoes in the morning" is that it's a complete lie, the media knows it's a lie but doesn't emphasize in every discussion of the Bush ads, Bush comments, Bush surrogate attacks that they're not simply twisting the words out of context but trying to pretend that Kerry was saying the EXACT OPPOSITE of what he said.
Here's the statement in full by Kerry:
"The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.In other words, Kerry explicitly says he WOULD act alone to defend America's interests. But he said when you do that, you better be damn sure you've got your facts straight and can justify your unilateral actions to your friends and allies and the world at large.
"No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.
"But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.
"Here we have our own secretary of state who has had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations."
And of course that global test is exactly what Bush failed. Not because he did something other countries disapproved of. But because his central evidence was a lie and he knew it was a lie and every assumption he made was wrong and has been proven wrong. If the US had found weapons of mass destruction or a nuclear facility building bombs only a few months away from being ready-to-go, the French and the Germans would have had to eat crow.
Kerry says directly and without equivocation he would act unilaterally. He simply states -- quite reasonably -- you better be damn certain when you do so. Any newspaper or magazine or TV broadcast that doesn't make absolutely clear that any Bush claim "global test" means foreign approval is an out and out lie should be ashamed of itself.
