CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK?

Powerline hinted at a big story to come out on Monday in the Washington Times. Since I woke up at 1:00 am on Monday morning, and since I have become a political junkie in the past couple of months, I thought I would check.

And there it is. The Washington Times reports that, contrary to statements he made during the second debate and in subsequent speeches, Kerry did not in fact meet with the Security Council prior to the Iraq War.

Kerry (emphasis added):

"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."

Well, as noted in here, the Security Council members at the time were the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, China (the permanent members) and ten others: Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Guinea, Ireland, Columbia, Cameroon, Bulgaria and Syria.

The Washington Times:

"The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified... The Times was only able to confirm directly that Mr. Kerry had met with representatives of France, Singapore and Cameroon. In addition, second-hand accounts have Mr. Kerry meeting with representatives of Britain... But after being told late yesterday of the results of The Times investigation, the Kerry campaign issued a statement that read in part, "It was a closed meeting and a private discussion." A Kerry aide refused to identify who participated in the meeting. The statement did not repeat Mr. Kerry's claims of a lengthy meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council, instead saying the candidate "met with a group of representatives of countries sitting on the Security Council." Asked whether the international body had any records of Mr. Kerry sitting down with the whole council, a U.N. spokesman said that "our office does not have any record of this meeting." A U.S. official with intimate knowledge of the Security Council's actions in fall of 2002 said that he was not aware of any meeting Mr. Kerry had with members of the panel. An official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations remarked: "We were as surprised as anyone when Kerry started talking about a meeting with the Security Council." Jean-David Levitte, then France's chief U.N. representative and now his country's ambassador to the United States, said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kerry did not have a single group meeting as the senator has described, but rather several one-on-one or small-group encounters. He added that Mr. Kerry did not meet with every member of the Security Council, only "some" of them. Mr. Levitte could only name himself and Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain as the Security Council members with whom Mr. Kerry had met. One diplomat who met with Mr. Kerry in 2002 said on the condition of anonymity that the candidate talked to "a few" ambassadors on the Security Council."

Yeah, but was Kerry wearing his magic hat?