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Kerry's fib

John Kerry misrepresented his voting record on Cuba during a recent visit to Florida, the Miami Herald reports.

Here's how reporter Peter Wallsten put it in a story published Sunday: "John Kerry had just pumped up a huge crowd in downtown West Palm Beach, promising to make the state a battleground for his quest to oust President Bush, when a local television journalist posed the question that any candidate with Florida ambitions should expect:

"What will you do about Cuba?

"As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kerry was ready with the bravado appropriate for a challenger who knows that every answer carries magnified importance in the state that put President Bush into office by just 537 votes.

"'I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,' Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney. ..."

"Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: 'And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.'

"It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote -- as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton's re-election after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

"There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.