WELL YE'LL TAKE THE HIGH ROAD, AND I'LL TAKE THE LOW ROAD, AND I'LL REACH THE WHITE HOUSE AFORE YE...
Kerry has decided to make "truth" an issue in this election. This link is some small paper, but this was also in the Washington Post:

''The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated'' it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. ''Their values system is distorted and not based on truth.''

To cut through Kerry's usual obfuscatory style, Kerry is either 1) making meaningless noises, or 2) accusing Bush of lying. To be more precise, he is communicating to American voters that Bush lied, while being vague enough to maintain plausible deniability. Clinton without the charm. Or the optimism. Or the intelligence. But anyway...

The trouble is, Kerry's premise is wrong. Bush didn't lie. Not about uranium from Niger, and certainly not about WMDs, which everybody from Jacques Chirac to Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton to Hans Blix to, as far as we know, Saddam himself thought that Saddam had.

It is true that we went to war, not on "false pretenses" (which implies intentional deception), but partly on the basis of false information (not wholly, since WMDs were only a small part of the war). But false information can be a lie, or a mistake, and there is all the difference in the world between the two.

That Kerry fails to make these subtle moral distinctions should be condemned with the utmost stringency. In a time of war, of crisis, of challenge, a fine-tuned conscience is essential. What is a shame is that a high road was available. A high-minded, honorable critique of Bush, a generous critique that recognized the best in Bush but which presented a more egalitarian, more prudent vision, was an option. Kerry turned his back on it, and is preferring the low road of scurrilous slander.

Not for the first time, though. Kerry began his political career, after all, by slandering American forces in time of war. Yes, criticism is permitted, welcome, freedom of expression, and so on, only Kerry went too far, making many claims that were exaggerated and baseless. Then and now, protesting abuses is praiseworthy only as long as it is restrained by a good faith effort to give those we accuse the benefit of the doubt as long as we can, to live by the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."

Weirdly enough, Saddam did have WMDs. Well, sort of. What is a WMD anyway? "Weapons of mass destruction..." the words are so thunderous, so ominous, that somehow "sarin gas," which sounds sort of cute and funny, doesn't seem to fit the bill. And yet, if we were to outline possible WMDs before the war, it would have been on the list. Was sarin gas a good enough reason to go to war? I don't think so, but something else was: liberating the Iraqis. As Muhammed continues to proclaim to the world:

we all believe that getting rid of Saddam was a beautiful dream that has become a reality we live in

Now that makes me feel good.