Kerry contradicts

John Kerry denies that he confided in Javad Zarif what Zarif told his interlocutor in the recording leaked to the New York Times (tweet below). The Washington Examiner reports Kerry’s denial here.

Now in assessing the relative credibility of Kerry and Zarif we confront something like the paradox formulated in the statement by the Cretan Epimenides: “All Cretans are liars.” Both Kerry and Zarif are proved liars many times over.

Here I draw on my long experience of Kerry going back to my college days. Kerry came up to speak at Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center in the first flush of his fame in 1971. In his remarks at the Top of the Hop Kerry reiterated the absurd lies of his Winter Soldier investigation that he had just retailed under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As a gullible student, I ate out of Kerry’s hand.

However, it wasn’t long before I wised up. I’ve got that much going for me. Kerry has only kerried on. In this case I think the circumstances lend credibility to Zarif’s story.

Seth Lipsky raises the question of credibility in the New York Sun editorial “A Fitting Coda to John Kerry’s Career.” Seth calls on Congress to get Kerry to testify on the subject. Alluding to the events underlying my own first exposure to Kerry, Seth writes: “The first time he testified before the Foreign Relations Committee, after all, he echoed Viet Cong emissaries he’d met with in Paris. So putting Mr. Kerry under oath on this matter would be a fitting coda to his career.” This is an observation that returns us to the paradox posed by Epimenides.

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