John Kerry; Al Gore. Al Kerry; John Gore. Interchangeable goofballs.

What is it about Democrats who have lost elections for President which requires they go overseas and say horrid things about the country they wanted to lead?

John Kerry went to Davos, Switzerland to hobnob with the rich and famous and took that opportunity to say that President George W. Bush has led the US to being a sort of "international pariah."

Kerry said:

"When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy."

To be scrupulously fair to Senator Kerry, he has some standing to say that. He is the US Senate's current champion of duplicity and hypocrisy and - as this appearance demonstrates again - terrible messages, so he knows what he's talking about.

John Kerry was a member of the US Senate when, in 1997, it voted 95-0 to send a resolution to the President (that would be President CLINTON not Bush) that it would not approve the Kyoto treaty because it was so badly flawed.

Second. On the AIDS in Africa business, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a piece in the NY Times in July of 2005 stating:

"Mr. Bush has done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did, increasing the money actually spent for aid there by two-thirds so far, and setting in motion an eventual tripling of aid for Africa."

In his State of the Union address last week, the President paid tribute to the Congress (of which Kerry is a member) saying:

[B]ecause you funded our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the number of people receiving life-saving drugs [in Africa] has grown from 50,000 to more than 800,000 in three short years.

So, John Kerry - how to put this gently - lied.

Last summer it was just a botched joke. This winter it's a botched Senator.

Another failed candidate for President, Al Gore, did essentially the same thing about a year ago in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah Economic Forum.

According to an AP report, Gore said the, "U.S. government committed 'terrible abuses' against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment."

Reporter Jim Krane wrote, "Gore said Arabs had been 'indiscriminately rounded up' and held in 'unforgivable' conditions."

As I related in MULLINGS last February: The Arab News, in its piece reported by Hasan Hatrash, showed Gore playing domestic American politics: "[Gore] said he and his Democratic Party colleagues have opposed illegal detention of Arabs in the United States."

Imagine the wailing and keening of the national press corps if a senior Republican had said either of those things during the reign of Bill Clinton. Every person who had every donated to the Republican party would have been required to answer for them.

The crop of candidates running for the Democratic nomination in 2008 all supported Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004.

The US press corps should, at a minimum, ask Clinton, Obama, Biden, and the rest of them if they agree with Kerry and Gore.

If the Democratic candidates do anything less than condemn their former standard-bearers, then they are guilty of agreeing with the slander.

On a sad and personal note, the Washington bureau chief of the NY Post, Deborah Orin, died yesterday of stomach cancer at the age of 59.

Deb was never a favorite of the Washington press corps because - in spite of having graduated from Harvard, and studying at the Sorbonne - she never intellectually ran with the crowd.

She was a tenacious reporter and political coverage in America will be diminished by her passing.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Kerry and Gore foolishness; and a link to the NY Post's obit for Deb Orin. Also a Mullfoto which will help you understand how the news business in Washington works; and a Catchy Caption of the day.