Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Various Kerry Spot readers are calling attention to the fact that the Kerry web site appears to have removed the press release that used to be
here:

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0227a.html

But can still be seen in the Google cache here, and has been posted on the FreeRepublic.com discussion board here:

The date of the event is February 27, 2004. The event was a speech at UCLA about homeland security, mentioning port security and airline security.

Now, Kerry wouldn't need any secret documents from March 2000 to make a speech saying port and airline security should be improved in February 2004. So it's hard to buy the most sinister theories running around, that Kerry was using the classified documents to put together his homeland security policy proposals.

Unless, perhaps, the 2000 memo mentioned something about airport perimeter security and airliner's vulnerability to shoulder-fired missiles, and somehow that inspired Kerry release's plan to "increase perimeter inspections of U.S. airports and work with international aviation authorities to make sure the same standards are in place at all international airports. He will work with our allies to crackdown on the sale of shoulder-fired missiles that could be used in an attack on civilian aircraft, and are sold on the black market." But would Kerry really need a secret memo to think of that threat?

Either way, it is odd that this event appears to have been deleted from Kerry's web site.

UPDATE: Another reader wonders if the language in Kerry's speech in New Hampshire on December 17 or at UCLA is from the security memo. Well, if that could be proven, it would be pretty damning.

UPDATE: The proposals in the speech are still on Kerry's web site here. Maybe this was just poorly-timed routine maintenance for his site. And the speech remains on UCLA's web site. Rereading it, it's hard to find a section that sounds like it came from a Richard Clarke memo. Unless someone can reveal the contents of the memo and show a clear connection, this looks like much ado about nothing.

[Posted 07/21 10:50 PM]