“On February 1, 2013, John Kerry was sworn in as the 68th Secretary of State of the United States. The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs advisor.
The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service, and U.S. Agency for International Development.” (Source: The U.S. Department of State website.)
On the surface, Senator Kerry appears to be highly qualified for this important post, but appearances can be deceptive, and there is at least one consideration that I believe should have given the President reason to re-think his appointment.
So, you may ask, what’s the problem?
Think about this: in the past John Kerry has told blatant lies under oath.
So what, you may ask. What politician hasn’t done that?
However, consider the following commentary by a U.S. Marine:
A MARINE IN IRAQ RESPONDS TO SEN. KERRY
John Kerry said, "You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well, and if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
As a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1982, John Kerry assured the voters of Massachusetts that he wasn't seeking the position as a mere "stepping-stone" to higher office. But just one year into his four-year term, he announced his candidacy for
the US Senate seat that Paul Tsongas was vacating because of illness.
Few people held Kerry's broken commitment against him. In part that was because nobody had believed it in the first place (all candidates for lieutenant governor seek the position as a stepping-stone). But it was also because everyone knew what Kerry
knew: If he passed up the chance to run for the position Tsongas was relinquishing, it might be years before it opened up again. So Kerry jumped into the Senate race and won. Sure enough, the seat has been occupied ever since.
For nearly 28 years Kerry had been a senator, and in all that time no Massachusetts Democrat has ever seriously challenged him in a primary. (He faced token opposition from a little-known Gloucester lawyer in 2008). Yet once speculation began that
President Obama might name Kerry to a Cabinet post, three Democratic congressmen — Edward Markey, Michael Capuano, and Stephen Lynch — quickly let it be known that they were interested in taking his place, raising the likelihood of a knock-down
primary.
A Senate bid by any of them would undoubtedly trigger in turn a lively primary fight for the House seat (or seats) being vacated. Otherwise, none is likely to face more than weak opposition for his party's re-nomination — especially not from incumbents lower
down on the food chain, hoping someday to move up. The last time a member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation lost a primary battle was 20 years ago, when Marty Meehan of Lowell ousted Concord's Chet Atkins. Before that it hadn't happened
since 1970.
Ours isn't the only part of the country where incumbency-worship runs deep. West Virginia sent Robert Byrd to the US Senate for 51 years, and Daniel Inouye represented Hawaii in Congress since it became a state in 1959. Charleston, S.C., has had the same
mayor since 1975. No matter how unpopular Congress is said to be, more than 90 percent of House members seeking re-election generally keep their seats; in that respect Nov. 6, 2013 was typical.
Yet American politicians didn't always assume that incumbency was meant to be for life. Most of Kerry's Senate predecessors served one or two terms and moved on; the endless reigns of senators like Ted Kennedy (46 years) and Henry Cabot Lodge (31 years)
were historical anomalies. Yes, there is always the possibility of electing someone so exceptional that his talents and experience make him irreplaceable. But the odds are overwhelmingly against it. Far better for officials to come and go, serving a spell in government,
then heading back to real life.
"Representatives ought to return home and mix with the people," Connecticut's Roger Sherman argued during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. "By remaining at the seat of government, they would acquire the habits of the place, which might differ from those
of their constituents."
George Washington could have been president for life, but he voluntarily stepped down after two terms. He could be trusted with power precisely because he could let it go. Most of today’s politicians can't bear the thought of giving up the authority with which we
trust them. And we, to our discredit, are rarely willing to take it away.
In popular wisdom, one-time presidential runner-up Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was nominated by President Barack Obama for Secretary of Secretary of State. But a group that was credited with helping to thwart his presidential bid considered re-organizing to
take him down once again.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group formed of military veterans who served alongside Kerry, worked to bring attention to the senator’s anti-war activities following his military service and to raise doubts about the truth of Kerry’s own accounts of his
conduct during the war and his overall portrayal of events in Vietnam.
Dozens of vets who, like Kerry, served aboard swift boats in Vietnam, prodded the then-presidential candidate to release his complete military records. And they castigated him for giving testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971
about American war crimes in Vietnam – “glorification of body counts,” destruction of villages, and numerous atrocities – all of which, the veterans said, were exaggerated or falsified.
While the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth officially disbanded as a political organization in 2008, former members say they were furious at the prospect of Kerry as Defense Secretary.
The organization’s co-founder and spokesman John O’Neill, a swift boat veteran who authored the bestselling Kerry expose “Unfit for Command,” hedged at questions on the subject from Sean Hannity of Fox News.
“To make (Kerry) secretary of Defense or secretary of State would be a disaster to our national security,” O’Neill said on the Nov. 15 show. “It really would be a total forfeiture of the loyalty that we owe the troops in the field.”
When Hannity asked if the Swift Boat Veterans would reunite, O’Neill said, “we will do the very best that we can.”
Weymouth Symmes, former national treasurer for the group and biographer of its founder, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, told Human Events that any political activity was still in the planning stages.
“There’s nothing formal,” he said. “There’s been a lot of discussions. But nothing official, nothing as a group.”
It’s not clear what a Kerry swift boating sequel would even look like. With the advent of new media, advocacy is more complex and varied than it was in 2004. Moreover, the veterans’ task this time would not be so much to inform the American electorate as
to strategically lobby the senators voting to confirm Kerry. That was an uphill task to begin with: most conservative senators were more concerned with preventing U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice from ascending to the top spot in the State Department than with
a Kerry nomination, and codes of collegiality generally dictate that senators confirm the nomination of one of their own.
Nevertheless, at least one veteran connected to the Swift Boat efforts is advocating the use of tactics employed in the recent election, from TV ads to SuperPACs.
“I can tell you I am personally appalled at the thought of John Kerry as secretary of defense,” Symmes said. “I suspect that will be the position of the vast majority of the Swifties and POWs who were involved with (Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth) in 2004
and after.”
© 2014 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved