And in no surprise at all, Obama…
…nominates Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry for the post of Secretary of State.
I’ve written about this choice before (including earlier, when Kerry was being considered for Secretary of Defense). So I’ll just quote myself:
…[T]his would be another example of what a keen sense of humor Obama has. For what better way to enrage the majority of conservative men who served in Vietnam long ago? They harbor enormous resentment toward Kerry for his Winter Soldier hearings (perceived by many to be based on exaggerations and outright lies), accusations of widespread American war crimes, and communicating with the enemy as some sort of self-nominated unofficial ambassador in Paris.
Take a look:
In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, at the time a leading anti-war activist, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese a year were being “murdered by the United States of America” and said he had gone to Paris and “talked with both delegations at the peace talks” and met with Communist representatives.
Kerry, now [in 2004] the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, confirmed Wednesday through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading Communist representative. But the spokesman played down the extent of Kerry’s role and said Kerry did not engage in negotiations.
Asked about Kerry’s saying the United States had “murdered” 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the country was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement that “Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate.”
Meehan said Kerry “never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.”
Meehan declined to say to whom Kerry was referring when he said the United States had murdered the Vietnamese; Kerry declined to be interviewed about the matter…
When Kerry was asked by committee Chairman Sen. J. William Fulbright how he proposed to end the war, the former Navy lieutenant said it should be ended immediately and mentioned his involvement in peace talks in Paris.
“I have been to Paris,” Kerry said. “I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points. … ”
The latter was a reference to a Communist group based in South Vietnam. Historian Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, described the Provisional Revolutionary Government as “an arm of the North Vietnamese government.”…
Kerry’s suggestion before the Senate committee that there be an immediate pullout led to questions about whether such a move would endanger the lives of South Vietnamese allies who had counted on U.S. military support.
Kerry responded that “this obviously is the most difficult question of all, but I think that at this point the United States is not really in a position to consider the happiness of those people as pertains to the army in our withdrawal.”
If the United States did not withdraw, Kerry said, then U.S. bombing would continue, and “the war will continue. So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America.”
Yeah, let’s make him Secretary of [State]. Why ever not?
Obama scraps Jackson-Vanik amendment
on another note – its getting more and more like Germany every day…
NY Gov. Talking Gun Control: ‘Confiscation Could Be an Option’
Obama’s smarts just amaze me.
John Kerry’s dishonesty is his most prominent attribute. He lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. His military service, like his life, is more fiction than fact. He accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq. He called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time – the same words he used to describe Vietnam. He wanted to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as he did to the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam, is another war that he was for, before he was against it.
This is a man with no center, no common sense, and no understanding of why we have to defend freedom. And that, of course, is why he is Obama’s choice.
Gag me with a spoon!!!
John Kerry has always reminded me of Eddie Haskell. What a dip.
John F Kerry is an example of a particularly loathsome type. He is a man who has betrayed his country and his honor and has used that betrayal to advance his personal fortunes. He uses to his personal benefit, the very area where he does his country the most harm.
The man is a moral coward and a perfect example of whom John Stuart Mill spoke; “War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing that is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
To add the gravest of insults to injury, Kerry has betrayed the “better men than himself” whose exertions and sacrifices enabled him to remain free. He spit upon them and accused them of war crimes. He colluded with the enemy. If any man in this administration is a traitor, it is he.
Then to complete his moral cowardice, he seeks to deny his prior actions that at the time he claimed were motivated by the highest of principles.
Pond scum has greater integrity.
What Geoffrey said.
His “initiatives” into foreign policy when he was a Senator were equally loathsome. He went down to Nicaragua, to sympathize with Daniel Ortega about that meanie Ronald Reagan. Daniel Ortega then showed his solidarity with Kerry by promptly flying off to Moscow.
Like Nancy Pelosi and David Duke, Senator Kerry made the pilgrimage to Damascus to tell Assad Jr. what a jerk Dubya was.
Kerry’s kowtowing to tyrants when a Senator shows how he will perform as Secretary of State. Maybe we should simply tell him that Ahmadinejad, Assad et al are secretly members of the Republican Party. Then Kerry might become more combative towards tyrants/
Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barney Frank and Elizabeth Warren. MA voters sure know how to pick them. Liars and buggers all.
Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barney Frank and Elizabeth Warren.
Add Gerry Studds and you’ve got a full house: three deuces and two queens.
The generations that understand John Kerry’s treachery are fading from the electorate, The generations coming up are left in ignorance. He is going to be a perfect secretary of state – for our enemies.
George, 10:11 pm — OUCH! [heee heee]
Pat, 10:27 pm — Yes, “^left^ in ignorance.”
This is not difficult. Obama needs an confirmation, because someone needs to run State, and a confirmation fight-and-failure, as he would have gotten with Susan Rice, would be an international embarassment. Kerry will be confirmed, because Mitch McConnell gets a stiffy every time he thinks about Scott Brown winning his way back into the senate.
It has nothing to do with offending vets, or Hamas, or whatever fever dreams one imagines.
helenL: of course Kerry was chosen because he will be confirmed easily. But he was also chosen because he’s of the same mind as Obama on foreign policy, and because his appointment will stick it to conservatives and conservative vets.
These attributes of Kerry’s are not mutually exclusive. His nomination was a no-brainer for Obama, it does so many things for him at once. In fact, before Rice’s problems left the Secretary of State position open, Kerry was going to be Secretary of Defense. Obama is probably sorry he can’t clone him and have him in both positions, and kill two birds with one Kerry.
And I’ll defer to you as the authority on Mitch McConnell’s stiffy.
As Pat says the generation that really knows and cares about Kerry’s abysmal actions in the Vietnam era were relatively few in number at best. He was always a poster boy for the Left.
Still, it tells us a lot about Obama that he would nominate this dishonest hack to such a pivotal and prestigious position.
It also tells us a lot about that bubbling cesspool, good old boy network, that passes as the United States Senate that he will undoubtedly be confirmed without serious dissent.
We are governed by trolls and ethically challenged dwarfs.
It is not for his past (Rogets” does not contain enough words for that) that I fear and despise, but the present and future in this creature. I cannot speak for all of us from that time, but for me this does not anger me so much as hardens and invigorates my opposition to these, well words are not sufficient.
The entire Left in this country are traitors to the US Constitution they claim to honor and obey.
This is nothing special, and has never been for those paying attention. What’s one more traitor at the top of American power. We’ve had them since decades past, whether for Iraq or Somalia.