John Kerry makes a habit of bragging about his refusal to accept PAC money. In fact, so does his campaign website:

Facts on John Kerry and Special Interests

PAC FREE: John Kerry has not taken a dime of PAC money during his four Senate elections or during his presidential race. PACs contribute a huge chunk of the money given to politics. Corporate PACs have given $1.2 billion to campaigns and parties since 1990. Not one dime has gone to John Kerry.

Strangely, the Federal Election Commission seems to think differently, showing contributions such as the following for Kerry:

CITIZENS ACTION PAC 06/27/2003 1000.00
CITIZENS WATCH 2000 PAC (FEDERAL) 06/27/2003 1000.00
SHEET METAL WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION LEAGUE 08/05/2003 5000.00
FLORIDA CRYSTALS INC PAC 06/27/2003 1000.00

(That's a total of $8,000 --- or 80,000 dimes --- for these particular contributions, for those of you counting at home).

Certainly, Kerry appears to have received very little PAC money relative to his overall contributions. And it also seems that some PAC's contributions were returned --- the entry for "O'MELVENY & MYERS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE" shows a contribution on 04/24/2003 for $1000, and then an entry for -$1,000 on 06/03/2003.

But "very little" is different than none, and certainly different than "not one dime."

So what am I missing here? Am I being overly pedantic or misreading this data, or has the maintstream press simply a) forgotten to bother to check Kerry's zero-PAC-money claim or b) judged it as "close enough"?