Marie Cocco: Yes, I'm Listening to Kerry

[marmar]

from Truthdig:


Yes, I’m Listening to Kerry


Posted on Jan 29, 2007
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—Not long after the “botched joke” blew that gaping hole through John Kerry’s political ambitions, I called a Democratic friend and made a promise: I will never, ever, say anything nice about Kerry again.

Promise made, promise broken.

Within a few days, Kerry is to offer the Senate yet another chance to consider what always have been his well-informed—and often wise—ideas for how to manage the disaster that is Iraq. The media shorthand will be that Kerry calls for “withdrawal.” The Massachusetts senator is, indeed, working on a measure that will most likely set deadlines for redeploying American troops and outline a diplomatic thrust that is so urgently and obviously needed to quell a civil war that threatens to become a regional conflagration.

It is worth noting that when Kerry proposed a similar approach last June, most of the political commentariat ridiculed him as pandering to antiwar activists, a supposedly crucial bloc of support needed for a 2008 Democratic presidential run. Kerry’s resolution went down by a vote of 86 to 13. Republicans were still echoing White House talking points that ridiculed all alternatives as “cut and run.” Most Democrats were still cowering.

Now, having given up his dream of becoming president, Kerry is more public servant than politician. He has reached down inside to tap that same quality that led him to volunteer for duty in Vietnam when others of his social status found safe havens from the fight. It is the same impulse that led him to win medals for his valor, the same courage that led him to return home to protest a dirty war when he could have tucked away his medals and marched off to law school.

It is, in fact, a quality we are always saying we want in a president: character.

The prospects for a second Kerry presidential bid were poor, and this was painfully obvious. The prospects for a winning vote in the Senate on firm deadlines for redeploying the American forces besieged in Iraq are, in all likelihood, equally bleak. Senators from both parties bicker instead over the wording of nonbinding resolutions expressing varying degrees of displeasure with President Bush’s decision to send in more troops. Should the Senate “oppose” the president’s policy, or merely “disagree”?

No matter. Bush will ignore them. All senators know it. This is the heart of our national political crisis.

It has now been 14 months since Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the defense hawk who supported the 2002 resolution that authorized the Iraq invasion, called Bush’s approach in Iraq “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.” Is it now less flawed, less shrouded beneath the illusions that envelop the White House? .....(more)

The rest of the piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070129_marie_cocco_kerry/

[wisteria]

1. Hey Ms. Cocco the media Washington Elite and people like yourself tried to do

him in for nothing more than a missing "us". And, frankly, that isn't why he decided not to run. If we elected our presidents on merit Kerry would have had a good chance to win in 2008. As it is this current crop of wanna be's do not measure up to in honor, patriotism and dedication to our country. People are going to wish they had given him a second chance this time out. As it was, they had it in for him.

As for the Kerry's amendment to set a deadline, I am happy she can stand him long enough to promote a worthy cause.