John Kerry at it again, doing what he does best
One of the many many perks of the end of the Obama administration was the long-hoped-for fading away from public life of John Forbes Kerry.
When I looked at that Wiki entry of Kerry’s I was surprised to see that he is still only 74. Of course, I already knew that 74 was around the age he had to be. But my momentary startle was probably due to the fact that it seems he’s been around forever.
That’s because Kerry’s fame began at a fairly young age, when he got a lot of publicity as an antiwar activist during the Vietnam years while he was still in his twenties. One of his activist activities (activists have activities, right?) was to talk with the Vietcong in early 1971:
Kerry, a leading antiwar activist at the time, mentioned it in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April of that year. “I have been to Paris,” he testified. “I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Provisional Revolutionary Government,” the latter a South Vietnamese communist group with ties to the Viet Cong.
Kerry’s campaign said earlier this year that he met on the trip with Nguyen Thi Binh, then foreign minister of the PRG and a top negotiator at the talks. Kerry acknowledged in that testimony that even going to the peace talks as a private citizen was at the “borderline” of what was permissible under U.S. law, which forbids citizens from negotiating treaties with foreign governments. But his campaign said he never engaged in negotiations or attended any formal sessions of the talks.
…John O’Neill, an organizer of the Swift boat group and co-author of the anti-Kerry book “Unfit for Command,” said it would be “unprecedented” for a future commander in chief to have met with enemy leaders. “It would be like an American today meeting with the heads of al Qaeda,” he said.
Historian Douglas Brinkley said Kerry’s trip to Paris, after his honeymoon with his first wife, Julia Thorne, was part of Kerry’s extensive fact-finding efforts on the war. “He was on the fringes,” said Brinkley, the author of “Tour of Duty,” a book about Kerry’s military service. “But he was proud of it. . . . He wanted to make his own evaluation of the situation.”
Kerry rubbed me the wrong way even then, although I was a liberal antiwar Democrat myself. Could not stand his unctuous self-righteous posturing, which dripped phoniness and self-aggrandizing drama.
One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was about Kerry, when he was running for president in 2004. Which brings us to now:
Former Secretary of State John Kerry has been engaging in shadow diplomacy to try to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, a major diplomatic achievement of his, according to a new report.
Over recent months, Kerry has been holding meetings and speaking with big players in the Iran nuclear agreement, who, like Kerry, do not want President Donald Trump to withdraw the US from the deal, The Boston Globe reported.
Citing a person briefed on the meetings, the Globe reported that Kerry had met with Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at the United Nations in New York two weeks ago, their second meeting in about two months, to discuss ways of keeping the deal limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program intact.
The former secretary of state also met last month with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, separately sat down with French President Emmanuel Macron in both Paris and New York, and spoke on the phone with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the source told the Globe.
Kerry has also quietly lobbied members of Congress, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, placing dozens of phone calls in recent weeks.
Kerry would like to preserve his “legacy,” of course. And what of the Logan Act? I think if a person is against that law in general—and I am—it shouldn’t be enforced against Kerry. But if ever there was a case that fit exactly into the scenario envisioned by the Logan Act, it would be this one:
(1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. The intent behind the Act is to prevent unauthorized negotiations from undermining the government’s position. The Act was passed following George Logan’s unauthorized negotiations with France in 1798, and was signed into law by President John Adams on January 30, 1799.
Looking at the history of the Logan Act and the two prosecutions (no convictions) that have occurred under it, I can’t see a similar situation or one in the same class as that of Kerry, in which the secretary of state of a previous administration seeks to negotiate to undermine the policy of the present secretary of state and the current president.
Of course, as Trump himself has said recently, Kerry is “not the best negotiator we’ve ever seen.” One thing about private citizens negotiating with foreign nations against the interests of present administrations is that those private citizens no longer have the power they once possessed, as those foreign nations no doubt recognize.
The last time Kerry decided to do some “secret diplomacy” it was to persuade New Zealand to help the Obama administration screw Israel at the UN (Resolution 2334.
https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/New-Zealand-meeting-calls-into-question-White-House-narrative-on-role-in-UN-vote-476380
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_2334
He was so successful with that episode of diplomatic backstabbing that I guess he figured he might as well try his luck again.
After seeing this guy in action for many years, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jane Fonda is better looking, smarter, and more patriotic than JFK. Maybe if he doesn’t succeed in undermining Trump, he can protest by throwing Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize medal over the White House fence.
It’s like the Vatican instructing some other nation whose response is “and how many divisions do you have?”
He got away with it the first time, so naturally he judges that he can get away with it again. Accomodating “political realities” is always in the long run… counter productive.
Had AG Sessions the least bit of integrity, he’d direct the DOJ to prosecute Kerry under the Logan Act.
BTW neo, out of curiosity, what in that law is objectionable?
Cue the “Just a Gigalo” background music.
When you read in detail about Kerry’s supposed “military service” in Vietnam, and the way he played the system there, it’s obvious that the Swiftboat guys were right about his actions and his character, and the slime was already pretty thick back then.
Add in his totally bogus April 22, 1971 testimony before Congress about U.S. troop’s actions there. Here’s a famous little excerpt–
“JOHN KERRY: Several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit–the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term “winter soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine’s in 1776, when he spoke of the “sunshine patriots,” and “summertime soldiers” who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.”
Then, around this time, in a very dramatic public protest, he supposedly threw his medals over a fence around the Capitol building. Only later did the information surface that they weren’t really his medals, but some he had somehow gotten from someone/somewhere else.
And the above tells you all you need to know about Kerry, and his character, and his latest subversive deviltry is right in line with it.
“Kerry rubbed me the wrong way even then, although I was a liberal antiwar Democrat myself…”
You were not the only one. In an early “Doonesbury” cartoon strip (back when it was all set on campus) two of the regular characters are looking at a poster announcing a talk by John Kerry. A third figure appears and enthusiastically lectures them about the need to go hear Kerry speak because he is the vital new voice of their generation. He exits and one character turns to the other and asks “Who was that!?”
The other one answers “That was John Kerry.” (I quote from memory so this is not exact).
Kerry is one of the most odious Lefties in the Democrat’s stable, and there is a lot of competition for that title.
If I am not mistaken Mr kerry has 2 Iranian sons in law, therefore must not lose (horse) face.
These are the Doonesbury strips to which John was referring. They came immediately to mind after reading Neo’s comment above.
http://www.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2004/02/04/john_kerry_doonesbury_strips_from_1971.html
Geoffrey Britain:
See this.
And note this passage in particular:
All it is at this point (or maybe at any point) is a potential political weapon. Not a good idea.
I despise John Kerry. When he was running for president in 2004, that was when I “went over to the dark side.”
If I remember correctly, it turned out that Kerry’s Winter Soldier “investigation” interviewed a lot fewer than the 150 vets he claimed, and that some of the people he did interview, and who claimed to have been soldiers who witnessed atrocities there, turned out to never have been in the military at all, and had never been in Vietnam in any capacity.
It was all a sham, a crock. A lot like the rest of Kerry’s “career.”
Man, would I love to see Kerry charged, and hauled into court over these meetings.
John F….ing Kerry. polite words escape me.
The man (Kerry) has no shame. He’s the type of self important phony that should be continually mocked.
The only thing he might understand would be to be clapped into stocks in a town square where the citizens could give him a thorough daily shaming. Liar, phony, traitor, gigolo, and he list goes on. A despicable human being.
The fact that the Democrat party did not dump Kerry immediately after his sham and shame were revealed in the seventies really does tell you all you need to know.
Molly: He has one son-in-law who was born in the US to parents who left Iran in the sixties. Google (I know, I know) turns up plenty of articles about the Iranian Connection, with varying degrees of spin, but there doesn’t seem to be enough to weave a coat of blackmail (extended family still lives there, however).
So has Kerry registered as an agent of the Iranian government? Seems to me that a person working in the interests of a foreign government is legally obligated to do so.
To Casey, above at May 5th, 9:48 PM, thanks for the link! That is exactly the strip I was referring to.
Kerry never spoke for me, as a Vietnam Veteran and, what he did after the war wasn’t anything to be proud of. Now, however, the fact that a news organization can report on it and not be calling for his prosecution is noteworthy.
Never forget that Sally Yates was talking Logan Act against Michael Flynn who was acting within the law. Someone should ask her, the self-appointed expert on the act, what of Kerry. Will she answer? I doubt it.
I live in San Antonio, where you cannot throw a rock without hitting a couple of retired colonels and a dozen Army or Air Force NCOS. When Kerry was doing his presidential run in 2004, every military retiree that I talked to from the Vietnam generation hated him so much they were practically incoherent.
Making his bones in the anti-war movement by cynically telling lies about American servicemen to jump-start his career — and then having the nerve to paint himself as an honorable veteran reporting for duty (and it was a crappy salute, let me tell you) infuriated them all.
And then there’s also this… so at least he’s consistent.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/25/john-kerry-reportedly-coaches-palestinians-not-to-yield-to-trump-in-peace-talks-spurring-backlash.html
Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly tried to meddle in Middle East peace talks, allegedly telling a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to “yield to President Trump’s demands.”
Israeli news outlet Maariv reported on the apparent meeting between Kerry and Hussein Agha in London, where the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee also reportedly floated a possible encore bid in 2020.
But in the conversation, Kerry reportedly told Agha to share a message with Abbas — urging him to “hold on and be strong” during talks with the Trump administration and “play for time … [and] not yield to President Trump’s demands.”
“Doing what he does best”? Giving aid and comfort to the enemy?
Despicable! Some people hate giving up power, no?
I do wonder how many other Obama people – and Obama himself – have been engaging in shadow diplomacy. There was a while there where Obama was stalking Trump’s foreign visits, leaving one to wonder what he was up to meeting with these world leaders right after Trump had visited. Where has Obama been these past few weeks?
Snow on Pine
When you read in detail about Kerry’s supposed “military service” in Vietnam, and the way he played the system there..
Indeed. When John Francis Kerryman was running for President in 2004, many of his supporters proclaimed how JFK did his duty, unlike those like Dubya who played the system to get into the National Guard. Or that Dubya used his father’s connections to get into the Guard. My cousin in Oklahoma also got into the National Guard, without any such familial connections. I also played the draft system. Many or most of my generation did play the system- either in or out of the Armed Forces.
John Kerry got out of Vietnam 8 months early for “wounds” that were less grievous than I had suffered playing pickup soccer or football. Don’t tell me John Kerry didn’t play the system. I don’t fault JFK for playing the system. I and many more did also. But JFK can be faulted for trying to have it both ways- presenting himself as “reporting for duty” while also playing the system.
Clearly he’s David Hogg’s role model.
Amirite?
“…fading away from public life of John Forbes Kennedy.”
A typo, one might assume?
IMHO, it would be lovely if Kerry would stop any fading process and just disappear.
Kerry is a lifelong odious creature. For unfathomable reasons Mrs. Heinz hustled out after her Senator husband’s death and inheritance of the Heinz fortune, and married below herself, to another Senator, Kerry, who lives as an indictment of the political idiocy of Massachusetts. But he keeps, or kept, his $7.4 million yacht in Rhode Island to avoid tax.
During the 2004 campaign I wrote the following limerick:
Once there was a candidate Kerry,
Who found two rich widows to marry.
First he was for,
And then against war.
Of such men we should be wary.
After JFKerry’s failed Presidential bid, people thought they would finally get rid of him. I, didn’t think so. And when Hussein put him back in power in DC, that was pretty much what I expected.
For the Democrats, losing an election doesn’t mean losing power.
neo,
I find McLaughlin’s argument that the Logan Act be repealed less than persuasive. I can agree that it should be amended to be more specific. But in a fight to the death, insisting that we should fight by the Marquis of Queensbury’s Rules, while the other side cuts down all the laws without consequence is a formula guaranteed to result in defeat.
And in anticipation of predictable protests that America is not in a “fight to the death” I would point out that the Left’s primary goal is the destruction of America. Along with the future they envision; illustrated by EU President Juncker’s defiant celebration of Marx’s 200th birthday as he unveiled a statue of Marx in remembrance.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/05/06/polish-anti-communists-jordan-peterson-slam-eu-boss-marx-statue/
Geoffrey Britain:
It’s a stupid law that it is unenforceable without opening the door to grave injustice. If you can draft a good law of this type, be my guest. I don’t think it’s possible. There’s already a law against treason that’s good enough. The Logan Act has never been used to convict someone for a reason.
Are you one of those people who would cut down all the laws to get the Devil?
This issue has nothing to do with Marquis of Queensbury’s rules.
AViewFromMontana:
Oops! Will fix the typo.
And crucially, as mentioned above:
‘Kerry reportedly told Agha to share a message with Abbas — urging him to “hold on and be strong” during talks with the Trump administration and “play for time … [and] not yield to President Trump’s demands.”’
(As though Abbas needs advice such as this…)
Demonstrating yet again—to anyone who still needs proof after eight years of chicanery—that Kerry and the administration he served were/are stalwart members of the “rejectionist front”—Iran, Hezbullah, Hamas and the PA—against the Zionist Entity.
(For the ZA’s sake, to be sure—to help her out in her hour of need—because what are friends for, except to try to offer “correction” when you are totally and utterly wrong….)
Correction: “ZA” should be “ZE”.
Lizzy Says:
May 6th, 2018 at 10:15 am
Despicable! Some people hate giving up power, no?
I do wonder how many other Obama people — and Obama himself — have been engaging in shadow diplomacy. There was a while there where Obama was stalking Trump’s foreign visits, leaving one to wonder what he was up to meeting with these world leaders right after Trump had visited. Where has Obama been these past few weeks?
* * *
Ah, but it’s okay if the Left and Democrats are doing it.
It’s only in the third person — those Evil Republicans — that it is treason.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/former-us-ambassador-to-russia-shadow-campaigns-like-john-kerrys-on-iran-deal-happens-all-the-time
“by Joe Williams
| May 06, 2018 11:43 AM
Amid a reported shadow campaign by former Secretary of State John Kerry to save the Iran nuclear deal, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia on Sunday said such efforts occur regularly.
The Boston Globe on Friday reported that Kerry has met with individuals like Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in an effort to keep the U.S. in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. President Trump is facing a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue to lift economic sanctions on Iran as part of the deal and has indicated he will walk away from the agreement.
Michael McFaul, the Russian ambassador under former President Barack Obama, was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether Kerry would have disapproved of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice engaging in similar behavior.
“He probably wouldn’t like it. We probably would have noted it,” he said.
But McFaul said campaigns like Kerry’s “happen all the time” and noted an instance when he had breakfast with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who afterwards went to see Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The good thing that Henry used to do and I think still does, he would report to us and tell us about his impressions of Vladimir Putin,” McFaul said, adding that he hoped Kerry was having similar conversations with current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”
* * *
Obviously, McFaul can’t tell the difference between a private citizen acting as a shadow agent of the actual governing party, and one acting as its opponent.
Which may explain why our Foreign Affairs under Democrats are always such a disaster.
Mr. Trump is not amused.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-hits-john-kerry-for-possibly-illegal-shadow-diplomacy
“by Melissa Quinn
| May 07, 2018 10:28 AM
President Trump on Monday criticized former Secretary of State John Kerry for his role in creating the “very badly negotiated” Iran nuclear deal and engaging in “possibly illegal shadow diplomacy.”
“The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!” Trump tweeted.”
Let us not forget that Kerry also, during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq under Bush Jr., met with Saddam’s good buddy Bashar Assad of Syria, to update him on Bush’s certain intent to invade Iraq (so warn your next door buddy to hurry-up and hide all those chemical and biological weapons).
He was a US Senator at that time and not a private citizen, but he was definitely not authorized to conduct diplomacy.
Kerry has pulled this kind of crap of negotiating/meeting with a hostile foreign power before, when in 1970, as the Vietnam War was raging, Kerry–still a member of the Naval reserve at the time–secretly met with the Vietcong’s chief negotiator, Madam Binh, during the negotiations of the Paris Peace Accords and, then, in 1971 Kerry held a press conference advocating the U.S. accept the Vietcong’s proposal, which included demands for the U.S. to pay reparations to North Vietnam
It’s pretty obvious that Kerry and the rest of the Obama/Valerie Jarrett/Holder crew believe that they still retain much of the power and authority they had when they were in office.
Moreover, it looks like they’ve probably got a lot of help from anti-Trump inside the Beltway types, that have managed to endow them with enough seeming power and supposed legitimacy for them to be able to arrange meetings with key Iranian players, and to try to thwart/screw with Trump’s foreign policy.
I’m pretty sure the Obama/Kerry crew are pulling this kind of shit because they believe that Trump will never dare to impose any real penalty on them for doing so and, why not, I don’t remember anyone being penalized for this kind of activity in the past.
Kerry certainly wasn’t back in the 1970s.
If I were Trump, I’d find some charge, and very publicly charge and arrest/perp walk Kerry for, say, aiding a hostile foreign power against the U.S.
(so warn your next door buddy to hurry-up and hide all those chemical and biological weapons).
Which they did since the UN gave them enough time to move the trucks caught on spy sat to Syria. Now Syria is using WMD chems that Hussein never had… heh.
What Kerry does best is marry rich women — and he’s very good at that! But you can’t say he’s not smart — after all, how many of us took our mother’s advice: “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it is a poor one!”
Kerry’s wife inherited the Heinz fortune from Republican/Conservative Heinz fortune founder…
Conservatives get money and influence, let the Left inherit it so that they can keep the rest of us from ever getting ahead of them.
The intelligence in that family comes from the wife, Teresa.
Teresa Kerry, most probably now incapacitated by a stroke she suffered 3 or so years ago.
“The intelligence in that family comes from the wife, Teresa.”
And since she was stupid enough to marry John …
This one never gets old …
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/group-of-gis-mocks-kerry-remarks/
And since she was stupid enough to marry John …
It was in the prenup that they would not combine their holdings if either one died… see how that works.
For a widow with lots of money, marrying a US Senator like Kerry is a good power bet. People like Trum need trophy wives because they need the best and brightest or else their lives become empty of meaning (well there’s always money). For a widow with lots of money, power and influence is more important than more money.
Kerry is nothing but a stinking pig… I wonder how much money he was paid for doing yet again selling America out.. He should be arrested for TREASON….. America lets make this happen.. I for one have had enough of this dirt bag!!!