In trying to defend his horrendous record on intelligence "and spin their way out of his lousy committee attendance record," Kerry's campaign "claimed on its website Monday, 'John Kerry served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years and is the former Vice Chairman of the Committee.' Fact is John Kerry has never – ever! – served as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," the Republican National Committee noted today.

"Turns out, there is a senator named Bob Kerrey from Nebraska who was vice chairman for a while. Kerry’s website later pulled the plug on the page, which might be construed as a metaphor for the whole campaign."

The RNC suggested: "Instead of posting false qualifications on the campaign website, maybe it would be wiser for John Kerry and the Gang That Couldn’t Spin Straight to follow the advice of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who called on the Kerry campaign Monday to end the controversy by simply releasing his committee attendance records. What are the odds?"

And thanks to Bush-Cheney '04 for finding this quote Feb. 10, 1994, in the Congressional Record from Kerry's Democrat colleague Dennis DeConcini, then a U.S. senator from Arizona: "Mr. President, the Kerry amendment includes a $1 billion cut in fiscal year 1994 and $5 billion over the next 5 years from intelligence activities."

Rep. Hastert said Monday, "John Kerry served on the Intelligence Committee from 1993 to 2000, and according to official records, John Kerry missed 76 percent of the public Senate Intelligence Committee hearings during that time.

"This figure doesn’t include his attendance at closed door meetings. Those records can only be released to the public at John Kerry’s request.

"This is something that needs to be done, and I join Senator Roberts, Senator Chambliss, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Coleman and others in calling on him to do so, so that the American people can judge the whole picture for themselves."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday on "Meet the Press," "The easiest way out of this is for John Kerry and John Edwards to request of Senator Rockefeller and myself to release the attendance hearings; not only the public hearings, which they have rebutted, but the closed hearings."

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Sunday on CNN: "So I would go to what is solid, uncontrovertible fact, and that is the records that each committee keeps with regard to the attendance at every hearing of all the members, whether they're there or not. Now, those records are available. John Kerry, if he questions the authenticity of this ad that's out there now, should simply get those records and put them into the public domain."

Let's see, is there a positive spin to the fact that Kerry missed 38 of 49 public hearings of the Intelligence Committee, including the June 8, 2000, hearing on the National Commission on Terrorism's warning about the terrorist threat? Well, at least his 22 percent attendance rate was better than his Senate attendance recently.

Editor's note: