An excellent reporter for my newspaper here in NH uncovered this story on Sunday. John Kerry has been highlighting the plight of a New Hampshire woman he says had to work “every day” through her chemotherapy because if she didn’t she would have lost her health insurance. He even spun her tale in his DNC acceptance speech. As our reporter found last week, the story is not true. She had 26 days of disability leave and chose to work through most of her chemotherapy instead. She did take off a few days for treatment.
When the reporter called the Kerry campaign for comment, they first said that “every day” was just “a colloquialism” and did not mean that she in fact had to work every day. They then said they did not need to verify the facts of the story because it was emblematic of the plight of Americans in George Bush’s America. Now they say Kerry will stick with his untrue version of the story because it is “inspiring.”
The reason you have yet to hear this is that for some reason the AP did not see fit to pick up the story. We are working to change that right now, so it may break nationally in the next few days. Stay tuned.
Here is the follow-up story where the Kerry campaign says they will continue to tell this “inspiring” untrue story.
Here is our editorial on the issue.
