Yesterday, the Prez nominated Sen. John Kerry to replace the departing Secretary of State, Hellery Clinton. Another triumph for political correctness and the Democratic Party.
Of course Obama could have done better. Kerry was not his first choice. He really wanted to appoint a black woman, viz. Susan Rice. If Ms Rice had only been disabled or a lesbian, the Prez could have hit the Trifecta there.
Sadly, Ms Rice blotted her copybook by her inept handling of State's reaction to the Benghazi "incident" -- the terrorist attack that she tried to pass off as a protest against an insensitive video. If she had told the truth, Obama wouldn't have had to tell a lie -- so goes the reasoning -- thus she must walk the plank.
That leaves us with Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate who couldn't manage to defeat the most-reviled Republican since Herbert Hoover.
Kerry's chief qualification, according to Obama, is that he won't need "much" on-the-job training. That's because he's been doing dippy [= diplomatic. Ed.] stuff for decades, and knows how all that unpleasantness should be handled. Right?
Errr, maybe not. Did John Kerry learn anything from his OTJ training in the Philippines in 1986? Then and there, Senator Kerry was a member of the US Congressional observer team sent to monitor the country's presidential election, in which Corazon Aquino was trying to oust the thoroughly corrupt orifice, Ferdinand Marcos.
P.J. O'Rourke happened to be present at the Thrilla in Manila. [Wasn't that something else? Ed.] Here's what he wrote in Rolling Stone.
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...thirty of the computer operators from [the elections oversight commission] walked off the job, protesting that vote figures were being juggled. Aquino supporters...took the operators, most of them young women, to a church, and hundreds of people formed a protective barrier around them. One of Cory Aquino's top aides [went] to the Manila Hotel.... 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. 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 stitting. To talk to the women, all he would have had to do was raise his voice.... But all Kerry did was walk around like a male model in a concerned and thoughtful pose.
Aha! Exactly the kind of posturing required of a Secretary of State! What O'Rourke condemns is what Obama sees as the best of all qualifications -- the ability to look concerned but do nothing.
Not much on-the-job training required. Indeed. Just the guy we want!
Footnote: P.J. O'Rourke's assessment of Kerry (as he was 26 years ago) was excerpted from "Goons, Guns and Gold", which originally appeared in Rolling Stone, and was reprinted in Republican Party Reptile, reviewed here on November 22nd.
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