Posted by Jim Lindgren:
John Kerry for Secretary of State?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_02-2008_11_08.shtml#1225913174
So John Kerry is rumored to be on Obama�s [1]short list for Secretary
of [2]State. Apparently, he wants the job, though it�s unclear how
likely Obama is to choose him.
Before making that choice, Obama�s transition staff should reread
[3]Newsweek�s superb post-mortem of the 2004 election. It depicts
Kerry as indecisive and a poor administrator, made even more
indecisive by the fear of appearing to be indecisive and a poor
administrator.
And [4]P.J. O�Rourke provides this unforgettable image of a young
Senator Kerry failing to take action as a monitor of the 1986
Philippines election probably stolen by Ferdinand Marcos:
The following is an excerpt from my [1986] Rolling Stone article,
"Goons, Guns, and Gold."
Most of the Potomac Parakeets were a big disappointment.
Massachusetts senator John Kerry was a founding member of the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War, but he was a bath toy in this
fray.
On Sunday night, two days after the election, thirty of the
computer operators from COMELEC [the Philippine government
"Commission on Elections," appointed by Marcos and in charge of
compiling the final vote tally] walked off the job, protesting that
the vote figures were being juggled. Aquino supporters and NAMFREL
volunteers took the operators, most of them young women, to a
church, and hundreds of people formed a protective barrier around
them. [NAMFREL--The National Movement for Free Elections--was
supposedly nonpartisan, but NAMFREL members were strongly
anti-Marcos.]
Village Voice reporter Joe Conason and I had been tipped off about
the walkout, and when we got to the church, we found Bea Zobel, one
of Cory Aquino's top aides, in a tizzy. "The women are terrified,"
she said. "They're scared to go home. They don't know what to do.
We don't know what to do." Joe and I suggested that Mrs. Zobel go
to the Manila Hotel and bring back some members of the
Congressional observer team. She came back with Kerry, who did
nothing.
Kerry later said that he didn't talk to the COMELEC employees then
because he wasn't allowed to. [A bone-head Rolling Stone
fact-checker sent the article to Kerry's Senate office for comment.
Kerry staffers were wroth and insisted the senator's version of
events be included.] This is ridiculous. He was ushered into an
area that had been cordoned off from the press and the crowd and
where the computer operators were sitting. To talk to the women,
all he would have had to do was raise his voice. Why he was
reluctant, I can't tell you. I can tell you what any red-blooded
representative of the U.S. Government should have done. He should
have shouted, "If you're frightened for your safety, I'll take you
to the American embassy, and damn the man who tries to stop me."
But all Kerry did was walk around like a male model in a concerned
and thoughtful pose. ��
Joe and I actually sent Bea Zobel to get members of the
international election observer delegation, headed by Colombia's
Misael Pastrana and John Hume, from Northern Ireland. Before we'd
gone to the bar, Joe and I had been at a press conference at the
Manila Hotel, listening to Pastrana and Hume denounce vote fraud by
Marcos. But when Zobel arrived the only election observer she could
find was Kerry, having a late dinner. Zobel was gone for a long
time. She said Kerry was "curt" and refused to leave until he'd
finished his meal and then only reluctantly returned to the church
with her.
From my [1986] journal: "Gets there & never talks to Comelec girls.
Boy is ball-less. Joe and I finally push forward & tell Kerry it
was us (1 Dem. & 1 Rep.) that called for him (we also heard,
Comelec girls wanted Observers called). That it was Joe & me seemed
to make a big difference to Kerry. Who still did f---all."
What I meant by "seemed to make a big difference" was that Kerry's
ears perked right up when he heard his name called by members of
the press. His reaction was to turn to us and say, magisterially,
"No interviews, boys." We explained that we had no interest in
interviewing him and suggested that he provide some reassurance to
the frightened conscientious objectors from COMELEC.
Now, with benefit of hindsight, I think I can tell you why Kerry
didn't do so. He was caught in Kerry-ish calculation--an ambitious
young senator on his first important bipartisan delegation with its
delicate mission of neutrality. Cory Aquino was very popular. But
so was President Reagan. Which way to have it? Why, have it both
ways!
For Secretary of State, Obama can � and probably will � do better than
John Kerry.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/18/AR2008101802113.html?nav=rss_politics/elections
2.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/03/rumor-mill-what-could-an_n_140777.html
3. http://www.newsweek.com/id/55728/output/print
4.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/947nzczv.asp?pg=2
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