WaTimes - Kerry lied

In a front page, above the fold article that's been the talk of the Internet for the past two days, the Washington Times investigated Kerry's claim, often repeated, that he had "met with the entire UN security council" before the war. According to Kerry, he was sounding them out to see how "serious" they were about dealing with Sadaam.

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

Kerry repeated the claim in the second debate.

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council.
"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

It's difficult to say if this revelation, eight days before the election, will have much of an impact on the vote. I would think that those who intend to vote for Kerry really don't care if he lies. If they did, they wouldn't be voting for him.

On the other hand, it may sway some voters who are leaning Bush but not committed yet. The Times points out that Kerry has made honesty a central plank in his campaign.

The revelation that Mr. Kerry never met with the entire U.N. Security Council could be problematic for the Massachusetts senator, as it clashes with one of his central foreign-policy campaign themes - honesty.
At a New Mexico rally last month, Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush will "do anything he can to cover up the truth." At what campaign aides billed as a major foreign-policy address, Mr. Kerry said at New York University last month that "the first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people."

The Times closes by emphasizing the point again.

Mr. Kerry closed the final debate by recounting what his mother told him from her hospital bed, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity."
In an interview published in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Kerry was asked what he would want people to remember about his presidency. He responded, "That it always told the truth to the American people."

It's hard for me to judge what impact this might have. Those who care probably already know Kerry lies regularly. Those who don't probably wouldn't be swayed anyway. There's certainly a lot of Americans who weren't the least bit bothered by Clinton's lies. In fact the relentless campaign of liberals to claim that Bush lies has, in my opinion, its genesis in the anger liberals feel over the (factual) charge that Clinton lied.

I'm not much for predicting things, so I'll wait to see the reaction, if there is one, to the article. Maybe it will make a difference in the final days. Maybe it won't.

UPDATE: Redstate.org has much more on this today.