to never go away....
www.FactCheck.org
Example:
http://www.factcheck.org/article147.htmlDid Kerry Oppose Tanks & Planes? Not Lately
Kerry voted often against nuclear missiles and bombers in the '90s, but GOP claims that he opposed a long list of conventional weapons are overblown.
Summary
Bush’s campaign chairman Marc Racicot on Feb. 22 accused Kerry of “voting against the weapons systems that are winning the War on Terror” and says Kerry was for "canceling or cutting funding for the B-2 Stealth Bomber, the B-1B, the F-15, the F-16, the M1 Abrams, the Patriot Missile, the AH-64 Apache Helicopter, the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, and the Aegis Air-Defense Cruiser." Another Bush campaign spokesman said Kerry has a "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems" (a clear impossibility since Kerry has been in office less than 20 years.)
It's true Kerry expressed opposition to those weapons 20 years ago as a candidate, voted against Pentagon budgets several times as a senator in the early and mid-1990's, and proposed cuts in military and intelligence budgets as deficit-reduction measures as recently as 1996.
But Kerry's votes against specific military hardware were mostly against strategic nuclear weapons including the B-2 bomber, Trident missile and anti-missile items, not against conventional equipment such as tanks. And Kerry has a point when he says “I've voted for some of the largest defense and intelligence budgets in our history,” which is correct. He's voted for military spending bills regularly since 1997.