After listening to much of the Republican National Convention, I was amused to learn that much of Zell Miller’s raving diatribe against John Kerry was based on an e-mail hoax.

Snopes.com is an acknowledged reference for debunking urban legends, and they have this to say on the basis for Zell’s accusations: “Claim: Senator John Kerry voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988.'”

“Status: False.”

Snopes explains that the purported proof all comes from three votes on entire appropriations bills; not individual or specific weapons systems. “Members of Congress ultimately vote yea’ or nay’ on an entire appropriations bill; they don’t pick and choose to approve some items and reject others.”

FactCheck.org debunked the distortion way back on Feb. 26, 2004 – only four days after Bush’s campaign Chairman Marc Racicot started it.

Apparently Republicans, who made Zell’s speech a keynote address, don’t hold themselves to the same standards on plagiarism as the Sun Journal does. Not only do they let their keynoter quote someone else without attribution, they’re perfectly happy to let him repeat an e-mail hoax that has been discredited for over six months.

This is what the Bush supporters do. They mislead, repeat the lie endlessly until people think it is true, then they do what they wanted to do in the first place.

America must do better than that.

Jackson W. Barnett, Poland