John Kerry, Secretary of Defense?
Rumor has it that John Kerry is being considered for the post of Secretary of Defense.
If true, this 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 Defense. Why ever not?
And to think he would have been president except for unexpectedly strong turnout for Bush. Our political class really stinks.
Kerry is a Commie sympathizer of the first order. He’s also a narcissistic jerk. In fact I can’t think of one redeeming quality to reommend him for dogcatcher much less his present exalted position in the Senate. SecDef? No, no, no!!
I would expect each of the service Chiefs of Staff to resign.
I don’t see it. Obama doesn’t need anything from Kerry, and he’d probably rather have an insider in the position. Obama isn’t the kind of guy who likes going outside his comfort zone.
Then there’s the problem of who would replace Kerry. Democrats don’t want a repeat of the Brown/Coakley race.
John Kerry embodies pretty much everything I viscerally loathe. Ivy League-smug, arch about his intellect while actually being remarkably stupid and ignorant, Chomskyan in his views about the US and the world, utterly hypocritical, in that way only commissars can be, in braying about the little guy while helping to insulate his circle of blue bloods from any intrusion from the rabble, pompous, dour, humorless, conceited, ugly both physically and spiritually – I cannot think of a single redeeming quality he has a human being. He reminds me of Robespierre.
All in all, a perfect choice for the Obama crowd.
The Diplomad’s last two posts are about what he calls “decapitating the military” and the “whitewater defense.” Both are well worth reading.
Here’s one paragraph:
“As I noted yesterday the Chicago mob currently in charge of our executive branch is fully committed to the Whitewater Defense . . . and on steroids. They seem increasingly desperate to make sure that the media and all of us are overwhelmed with trivia, half-truths, and outrageous leaks to keep us too preoccupied, too confused, and ultimately too disgusted and bored to examine the Benghazi fiasco.”
(http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/)
I really hate all the speculation surrounding the Benghazi disaster, but it smells so bad that for once in my life I feel justified in indulging in conspiracy theories. All of those involved in making critical decisions about Benghazi are now either discredited or being moved out of the way of potential Congressional inquiry. That would be Petraeus, Clinton, and Panetta.
John Kerry? To quote Bob Dylan, “Is t here a hole for me to get sick in?”
Kerry? Yup, that really would be Obama thumbing his nose at others, now wouldn’t it?
If this rumor is true, Obama really does know what he is doing; But, sadly, most liberals would not see a problem with Kerry as Sec. of Def.
What kolnai said in spades multiplied by 1,000.
What would such considerations say the goal of the choice is?
ie… is he picking a winning team, or picking a losing team to address some flexibility in the future?
Listen folks, we want the donkeys who voted for Dear Leader to wake up, right? That means letting him fail so big that even the media won’t be able to cover for him. Now Obama’s supporters are not the white male veterans so Kerry won’t have any problems becoming SecDef. His most important attribute as far as we’re concerned is that, according to Barry Rubin, he is a dope. Recall he thought along with Hillary that Assad was a reformer. So let Obama nominate him. Let the Republicans rake him over the coals, let him get into that position and let’s hope he does what comes naturally, that is betray his country at the top of his lungs. As Small Dead Animals said of the election, you broke it, you bought it.
As I recall, John F Kerry, who served in Vietnam, admitted to participating in those war crimes.
A) who thinks it is a good idea to let a war criminal be SECDEF?
B) why hasn’t the Senator resigned his post, and turned himself over to the Vietnamese government for trial and adjudication?
Actually Kerry admitted he hadn’t seen the crimes, and was reporting what others had seen.
This is what turned the “Swift Boat vets” against him. He testified in the Winter soldier hearings about attrocities which he hadn’t seen (although it sounded like he was talking about stuff he witnessed), and which proved to be false or were never verified.
It was an effective “lawyer lie”; he didn’t lie because it wasn’t his story, only the story of others (maybe they lied!). As a decorated officier and well spoken lawyer, his speech was no doubt effective and taken seriously. A real stab in the back to vets.
the order says that if an individual is declared by the president, the secretary of state, or the secretary of the treasury to be a “sanctioned person,” he (or she) will be unable to obtain access to his accounts, will be unable to process any loans (or make them), or move them to any other financial institution inside or outside the United States. In other words, his financial resources will have successfully been completely frozen. The EO expands its authority by making him unable to use any third party such as “a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, subgroup or other organization” that might wish to help him or allow him to obtain access to his funds.
And if the individual so “sanctioned” decides that the ruling is unfair, he isn’t allowed to sue. In two words, the individual has successfully been robbed blind.
executive order revising authority to nationalize resources for defense
It orders Cabinet agencies to determine military and civilian staffing and evaluate access to resources like suppliers, materials, skilled labor and professional and technical personnel. It also is intended to ensure the U.S. government is prepared “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States.”
The executive order gives the homeland security secretary authority to issue guidance to other department heads to establish and activate a National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) composed of experts in the private and public sector — though not full-time federal employees — to fill executive positions in the federal government in the event of a national defense emergency.
What did you expect?
John Kerry makes perfectly good sense to this president.
Because this president doesn’t even pretend that he’s the president of the American people.
His actions are those of the president of the Democrat people.
Buy a clue.
As far as he’s concerned, the rest of America can go eff themselves.
davisbr: I fail to understand why you say, “buy a clue.” Where do you see any indication that I would be surprised at such an appointment? I indicated the opposite, I think.
However, for various reasons, I think it’s more likely to be a rumor. I think someone else will get the job—but someone who, like almost all of Obama’s appointees, is (a) incompetent (b) a political operative (c) someone who will do exactly what he/she is told
I noticed this pattern a long time ago. What Obama wants, above all, is a loyal apparatchnik.
…it wasn’t personally directed Neo, it was meant as a general observation …as in “America buy a clue” or “conservatives buy a clue” or “the Right should buy a clue”.
This president just doesn’t give a crap about 50% minus 1 of the Republic. We don’t exist to him, or worse, we’re evil. Depressingly, its not just rhetoric.
“I won.”
“Buy a clue.”
At this point, four years in, astonishment (especially implying indignation) at the president’s actions by Americans is a sadly laughable response.
I’m not feeling all that hopeful about the future of the Republic today, which tends to bring out – or at least accentuate – my pissiness.
Sorry.
Nothing will surprise me over the next four years–and beyond if Hillary runs in ’16.
I do not know how and any General or Flag Officer could serve under a SecDef Kerry. But, none of them were really Vietnam era, so maybe he does not turn their stomachs so much as he does older veterans.
In addition to his awful actions after he left uniform, he corrupted the awards system. One point I chide Bush for is that he did not order an investigation of how Kerry obtained three Purple Hearts without spending a single night in a medical facility. (I know that politically Bush would have been pilloried, but the CINC has a duty also to protect the system.) Whenever I look at a picture of our vets with missing limbs, proudly wearing their hard won purple hearts, and think of Kerry, I want to do something violent.
davisbr: that’s okay. No need to apologize. But thanks.
Kerry would be a compliant tool for BHO. Kerry will be up for re-election in 2014. If he has no intention of running in 2014, I can easily believe he would desire to end his ‘public service’ career as SecDef. He would sail through the senate confirmation hearings. Senators are ever ready to accommodate their fellow fools.
I expect the next thing we will see is John Edwards appointed Director of National Breast Cancer Research.
“I expect the next thing we will see is John Edwards appointed Director of National Breast Cancer Research.”
LOL!
If anybody doesn’t believe that Obama’s ultimate goal is the deliberate destruction of the United States of America, the nomination of John Kerry for Secretary of Defense should remove all doubt.
Obama spent his first term dismantling our economy; now he’s going to dismantle our defense.
Artfldgr is right: We’re going to be attacked.
Let’s not forget, too, of John”I served 3-months in Vietnam 43-years ago”Kerry telling the US Senate in fairly recent years that the recollection of his nights on the river in Cambodia was,”..seared..seared into my memory.”
Problem, you ask?
NEVER happened. WASN’T there.
He used the “Xmas in Cambodia” lie multiple times, against Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. It changed and faded away during the 2004 election.
If Obama nominates Kerry that – to me – signals an uncompromising openly aggressive and extremely ideological focus for the next four years.
I’m not happy with it, but if he were a tad more devious he would pursue a superficially more middle of the road public face while making sure he moved the executive root and branch further to the left.
He may believe – because of his ideological bent? – that this public confrontational approach is justified by his permanent defeat of all evil things right wing, but (remember 2004 Rove happy talk) what it will likely do is shift independents and all those voters who didn’t show up this last time to vote to offset his extreme positions come this 2014 – better late than never I guess.
Robert Gibbs should better watch where he steps. Chris Matthews i ready to step into his shoes.
Archives: Federation of the planets. Foundation of the Beginning. Excerpt 3055:
United States, the sick man of the world, exhausted, drained of will to defend and fight, then sought to deny, delay, and enjoy before the end came. But something strange happened: the sick man revived.
The Christmas in Cambodia lie is one of the main reasons I stopped viewing Douglas Brinkley as a true historian,but a leftist bootlicking hagiographer and propagandist.
“If anybody doesn’t believe that Obama’s ultimate goal is the deliberate destruction of the United States of America.. ”
I have a very slight disagreement; his goal is to transform the USA into a social welfare, politically correct state based upon the European model. And, he wants the West to grovel in the dust for the colonial repression of Kenya.
Returning the bust of Winston was the early clue:
http://tinyurl.com/cyaows6
Given his age, how many months of service can Kerry survive?