Republicans lie

But so do Democrats. Zig Zag Zell is so crazy, it is barely worth bringing up again. He was, after all, NOT ELECTED, but rather, appointed by a Republican governor after the death of the sitting Senator.

The bulk of his lies had to do with Kerry's voting record on weapons approrpiations. Zig Zag and the Republicans claim that John Kerry, during his 20 years in the Senate, voted to kill the M-1 tank, the Apache helicopter; the F-14, F-16, and F-18 jet fighters; and just about every other weapon system that has kept our nation free and strong.

The problem is that none of these weapons ever came up for a vote, either on the Senate floor or in any of Kerry's committees.

Ironically, it was Dick Cheney—who was the secretary of defense for George W. Bush's father—was truly slashing the military budget. Here was Secretary Cheney, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 31, 1992:

"Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend."

For the full report, see Fred Kaplan's brilliant analysis of Zig Zag in Slate.