Are there two Kerry's running around living lives in parallel universes?

From Sunday's Miami Herald:

''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 in an interview to be aired at 11:30
this morning.

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 reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen.
Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.

Asked Friday to explain the discrepancy, Kerry aides said the senator cast
one of the 22 nays that day in 1996 because he disagreed with some of the
final technical aspects. But, said spokesman David Wade, Kerry supported the
legislation in its purer form -- and voted for it months earlier.

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How stupid does one have to be to publicly lie about something that is one
of the easiest things to verify...namely, how one voted on a particular
issue in the Senate?

Less than 1/4 of the Senate voted against the legislation...and Kerry was in
that minority. Yet he's stupid enough to claim he voted for it!?!?