A Joe Biden Moment?

....did Kerry just have one?

From the closing paragraph of this article in the NYT:

Later, in Rochester, Minn., Mr. Kerry denied that he had used Dr. Dean's critique of Mr. Bush's handling of the war. "I don't think I borrowed anything; that's a phrase that I've used," Mr. Kerry told an interviewer from the Minneapolis NBC affiliate, KARE.

I've read elsewhere that Ted Kennedy actually used the "wrong war" phrase before Howard Dean, but it was certainly Howard Dean that brought that phrase into the public consciousness. I don't have access to Lexis-Nexis, but as far as I know Sept. 6 was the first time that Kerry has said it.

Here's my question: why would he lie about it? Granted he doesn't want to be associated with the foreign policy pronouncements of Howard Dean, but in a day and age where such statements can be easily checked why lie about it? And if you don't want to be associated with Howard Dean, why use his words? Isn't there another way to get the same thought across without plagiarizing and then having to play "catch me if you can" with the truth?

It looks to me like you can chalk this up as yet another example of Kerry speaking "truth to power"...it just so happens that, as usual, his truth has very little relation to the reality the rest of us live in...