One good side effect of the election of 2016…
…is that several political careers are now over.
Hillary Clinton’s.
Barack Obama’s—although he apparently intends to continue his political activism, and others are begging him (and Democrats) to drop their usual benevolent kindness towards their opponents and finally take the gloves off:
Ever the institutionalist, Obama undoubtedly worries about the downsides of staying in the fight. Won’t it set a bad precedent? Won’t it further polarize America? Won’t it further degrade political norms?
Yes, yes, and yes. But these are questions that Republican leaders haven’t asked themselves for years, and they have a unified government to show for it. To fight back with any effectiveness, Democrats have got to be tougher. That means breaking a few norms themselves, if only to save others.
Noble of them, isn’t it?
Yesterday I was grateful to add the name of John Kerry to the group of people unlikely to hold office again. Kerry is a man I detested even back in my liberal Democrat days when he first became famous during the Vietnam era. And yesterday, Kerry once again proved himself to be the perfect vain and self-congratulatory self-important self-righteous fact-compromised toady to Obama, doing his bidding and selling Israel down the river while pretending not to. Hey, maybe Kerry will get a Nobel Peace Prize, too, which I have no doubt he would treasure.
But I will be very grateful to know that pretty soon he’ll be out of public life/office—I think.
You never really do know that sort of thing, I suppose. I thought it was over for him in 2004. And Massachusetts might decide to send him to the Senate again, if he wants to go. Kerry is 73 now, and although by the time a Trump first term is up he’ll be 77, I guess that’s not too late for some sort of appointment if the Democrats have a renascence in 2020.
[ADDENDUM: Jim Geraghty certainly seems to agree with me about Kerry:
John Kerry ends his long career in politics the same way he began it: disgracefully…
Kerry in 2013 was a perfect choice for Obama’s second secretary of state. For the better part of three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry had spoken as if statecraft and international diplomacy were relatively easy tasks, and only the bunch of idiots in the current administration ”” Republican or Democrat ”” could mess it up like this. Finally, Kerry would get the chance to show everybody how it’s done.
We see the results today…
Arrogant and full of himself as ever, Kerry trashed this country and its military on the way in, and trashes Israel on the way out.]
The claim by Vyse at New Republic that “these are questions that Republican leaders haven’t asked themselves for years” is simply insane. I’m not sure what to make of it other than it illustrates a significant narcissism. None of the Republican presidents in my lifetime has tried to interfere in government after their terms were up. Nor did Truman or Johnson. Carter did not at first, but them put himself back on the national stage in the 90’s. Bill Clinton continues to inject himself into many discussions. Obama has now hinted a few times he will do the same.
I an only understand his comment as “Republicans won’t do what we want, so we have to change the rules.” The rest of the essay is just variations on that theme.
“I can only understand his comment as “Republicans won’t do what we want, so we have to change the rules.” The rest of the essay is just variations on that theme.”
Ain’t it da truth. It’s what they have always done: FDR threatening to pack the Supreme Court, and using that judicial intimidation to force through his New Deal, springs to mind.
Obama continued the MO.
The future is never what we predict.
Michelle Obama could be a candidate. Or not.
Trump might do great things for the country. Or not.
The Republican party can go through the worst situation ever due to Trump or expand it’s popularity.
What am I getting to? I believe that it is due to the Information Age and blogs and talk radio now able to be heard on every iPhone and Android and the collapse of traditional media that people are gaining a foothold over elitist central planner types.
The big question will be how the academic influence plays out and how the illegal immigration influence gets resolved.
There will always be tension between the two camps of information and people have seen through a lot of what Obama has said. 8 years of it. Same repetitive lies.
Never fear, the left has equally despicable replacements waiting just off stage. Cuomo, Ellison and Warren come to mind.
What a terrific present it would be if Ellison was selected to lead the dnc.
“The claim by Vyse at New Republic that “these are questions that Republican leaders haven’t asked themselves for years” is simply insane.”
The Trump Administration sure has made all the liberals put their total lack of self-awareness on display, hasn’t it? Just yesterday Amanda Marcotte chimed in with a blog post containing this little gem:
“This is how white supremacists operate: They tell stories about how white Christians are supposedly under assault from Jews and people of color, which in turn allows them to justify their racist views as a form of self-protection.”
It’s like she thinks “microaggressions” are now an alt-right invention.
Loved your Kerry post, Neo. I was a very active anti-VietNam War Liberal/Lefty in the late sixties/early seventies and absolutely loathed Kerry. I got “mugged by reality” at the start of the eighties, became a neocon and further detested John Boy when he traveled to and blathered from Nicaragua smoothing Communist Sandinista tailbones…All that Leftyism of John Boy’s while he married into hundreds of millions the first time and a billion-plus this time. “Wounded” multiple times in his four months in Nam, but never missed a day of work. And the Swift Boat men who “knew” we’re swarmed as liars!! He’s a fictional midget of malignant narcissism.
John Kerry with a Nobel Peace Prize?
I guess that makes sense, as a logical progression. Yasser Arafat won it for shaking hands while muttering the word “peace”. (I guess nobody heard him mutter “…Anything except…”) Then All Gore won it for making a movie, thereby proving he was not George W. Bush, which is sort of about peace… or something. Jimmy Carter got some sort of Lifetime Achievement peace prize, I think (or was it a booby prize by then?).
Then Barack Obama got it, not for doing anything, but for PROMISING to do things. (He didn’t. Whatever one can say about BHO’s achievements, he didn’t advance the cause of peace for anybody.)
So now it would be fitting for John Kerry to get it… not for doing anything, but for not even trying.