John Kerry is winding down his career as a diplomat. It can’t come soon enough. The White House climate czar recently announced he is stepping down to focus on President Biden’s reelection campaign. Over his decades in the Senate and executive branch, Kerry has embodied two of the worst trends in American politics: the collapse of the Northeast establishment, and the left’s unserious faddishness on foreign policy.
The Northeast establishment played a pivotal role during some of the most fraught periods in American history, and the country has sorely missed the leadership it used to provide. When Germany grew threatening, figures like Franklin Roosevelt and Henry Stimson guided the country to victory. Other bluebloods like Dean Acheson and Averell Harriman set the country on the path to defeat the Soviet Union. The next generation performed admirably in World War II, but less well in high office. There were some stars, like George H.W. Bush, but others, like McGeorge Bundy, sailed into the highest ranks of the elite and confidently bungled the Vietnam war.
Kerry absorbed the WASP establishment’s self-assurance, but not the discipline and skill to justify it. At one of his elite prep schools, his classmates acknowledged his ambitions by playing “Hail to the Chief” on kazoos. A Yale classmate later recalled, “Even as a junior or senior, he was a pompous blowhard,” and Ted Kennedy’s friends called him a “show horse.” He quickly became notorious at the State Department for not reading the materials his staff prepared for him, although he prided himself on reading “an interesting article or two” to “get some history” about the people with whom he was negotiating.
This unwillingness to learn accounts for many of his mistakes. Kerry first made his name in 1971 by testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about alleged American war crimes in Vietnam, which investigators later found to be mostly unverifiable or outright falsehoods. He had nonetheless established himself in the antiwar movement and became a famous Cold War dove. He ran for Senate promising to undo the Reagan defense buildup, and the Associated Press reported that he viewed Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega “as a misunderstood democrat rather than a Marxist autocrat.
Good riddance is right!!!! He is one of the biggest POS there is. Old horse face, greedy bastard.
There’s no words for these clowns. And we have to put up with them.
A traitor of Hanoi Jane’s ilk….
hell aint full yet!
No good riddance to that SOB until he ceases to fog a mirror!
Still waiting for the original DD214, not the revamped one Carter authorized.