NYT: Kerry Aims to Make Mark as Senate Chairman

[MarjorieG]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13kerry.html

snip

Mr. Kerry, an acknowledged authority on many aspects of the international landscape he will be surveying, said that he was looking only forward, that too much was made of personal political wrangling, and that he was settling in for an aggressive engagement on foreign affairs in concert with the administration, or on his own if need be.

“We will not hesitate to try and push and cajole and leverage where we think we need to,” Mr. Kerry said.

snip

“This is a great job,” Mr. Kerry, who turned 65 last month, said in an interview. “This is an opportunity to affect policies I have cared about for a long time. I am sitting in a terrific seat. I am independent, call my shots. There are a lot of virtues, believe me.”

Fellow members of the panel say that Mr. Kerry is thoroughly prepared for the position, given his long service on the panel and that he could put the spotlight back on the committee, which has been overshadowed in recent years by the Armed Services Committee because of the focus on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“John Kerry is one of the best-informed people on foreign policy in Washington,” said Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who would have been in line for the chairmanship had Mr. Kerry joined the cabinet. “I think this is an opportunity he has waited for for a long time. He has credibility not only within the Senate but among the American people as a very serious player.”

snip

While the current focus is on the secretary of state hearing, Mr. Kerry is already looking beyond that. He has invited all the members of the panel to a dinner at his home to try to strengthen the personal relationships on the committee. Aides say his first policy hearing will be on the issue of global warming, a topic he says the Obama administration must immediately confront.

“I think we are standing on the threshold of a huge opportunity to actually get something done,” he said. “The Obama administration is going to have to get up to speed very, very quickly.”

Mr. Kerry has also moved to beef up his investigative staff, an indication that he might try to concentrate significant effort on the type of Congressional inquiries he headed earlier in his Senate career. Those committee investigations were once a hallmark of Mr. Kerry during a Congressional tenure that some believe has never fully met expectations.

Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution, said the chairmanship offered an “excellent opportunity to make the mark in the Senate and in national policymaking that he has long aspired to but not yet achieved.”

Mr. Kerry said his agenda extended far beyond global warming to the multiple crises in Africa, changes in South America, conditions in Iraq, the strategic relationship with China, the Middle East and the current state of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which “frankly, are both really messy right now.”

“The challenges are just gigantic,” he said. “I really don’t approach this with anything other than the sense of the possibilities here. I think we are going to have a very different foreign policy and I think we are going to have a very different moment for America. And I look forward to having a role in it.”

[karynnj]

1. Nice article

At first, I thought I had to disagree with Mann. Even if he doesn't get the credit for it, Kerry has set the policy that others follow on at least:

- Iraq - Kerry/Feingold was the root of both Clinton's and Obama's plans
- terrorism - everyone agrees with him now and he was the one who wrote the international money laundering legislation
- global warming - he has impacted the world position - even if Gore is the one that taught people here.

However, he may be saying that Kerry has not become identified with the world view on foreign policy that he has. Unlike most Senators, including Obama, Clinton and likely Biden, Kerry has articulated a foreign policy that really is uniquely his. Yet, it has never become the way the country acts in the world. The statement makes sense because even in 1971, Kerry at 27 passionately called for a change in foreign policy. The expectation that he hasn't fully met is high because he is John Kerry. (After all - no one says that Jay Rockefeller or Tom Harkin haven't fully lived up to expectations - yet neither have accomplished as much - and they came in about the same time. Not to mention - HRC accomplished nearly nothing as Senator.)

Reading or listening to Kerry speak on foreign policy issues is fun because even at 65, he has the optimism and the idealism of the young man he was in 1971 coupled with the maturity and knowledge gained through the hard work he has done for decades. There could be something that will become a "Kerry policy" - Maybe generalizing the approach he spoke of on how to lift up oppressed people and calling it Kerry's policy. He has said what he thinks needs to be done - both in general high level speeches - but also in specific instances - such as in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.

At the first SFRC after he lost - Rice's confirmation he spoke of how we needed to give the different people in Iraq stakes in the future of the country - and they would eject Al Quaeda.

Here is a little clip from a MA forum where he speaks of the lost opportunity when Abbas first gained power - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXd66eae9K8

Here's an op-ed written on Lebanon after the bombings - http://www.johnkerry.com/news/entry/a_crucial_time_for_saving_lebanons_fragile_democracy/

His approach is both so humane so common sense that it is a breath of fresh air compared to what I hear from anyone else.

[ProSense]

2. Another interesting piece:

Kerry's Historic Opportunity on Genocide Policy

By Susan Morgan and Eric Cohen

At last, US rhetoric on genocide may mature into effective policy against genocide. What better place to begin than the confirmation hearings to be held Tuesday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?

The bi-partisan "Genocide Prevention Taskforce" published its recommendations on December 8, 2008. Their "blueprint for action" comes just in time for the 60th anniversaries of the landmark "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" and the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Sixty years is a long time to wait to have a coherent and effective approach to preventing and responding to genocide - too late for Rwanda and other 20th century genocides, but in time, still, to make a difference for Darfur.

Senator John Kerry is well-positioned to take a historic step toward implementing an effective anti-genocide policy.

On June 7, 2004, Senator Kerry sounded the alarm about the crisis raging in Darfur. "The world did not act in Rwanda, to our eternal shame. Now we are at another crisis point this time in Sudan." Kerry's call for "immediate action" may have prompted President Bush to label the violence "genocide" - the first time a sitting president has used that word to describe an ongoing crisis. But over the next four years, President Bush failed to muster actions consistent with his rhetoric on Darfur.

As the newly named chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Kerry's first major task will be to vet President-elect Obama's nominees for Secretary of State, Senator Hillary Clinton, and UN Ambassador, Dr. Susan Rice. The Genocide Prevention Taskforce urged "America's 44th president to demonstrate at the outset that preventing genocide and mass atrocities is a national priority." That process can and should start in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Since Kerry's statements in 2004, the situation in Darfur has continued to be dire. Despite a UN prohibition on offensive military flights, the Government of Sudan continued to bomb villages, at least 43 times in 2008. Insecure camps warehouse over 2.5 million people. UN peacekeepers and humanitarian workers are robbed and attacked. Khartoum obstructs the deployment of the UN peacekeeping force, threatens the entire humanitarian program, and their Janjaweed militia are still armed. No meaningful peace process exists.

more

[ginnyinWI]

3. bettter than sec-state.

As Sec-State he'd be a representative of the president. Here, in the SFRC he's his own man with a lot of power. He'll work in concert with Obama and the effect will be multiplied. Obama's lucky to have such a man in the Senate.

[TayTay]

4. Nice video from this morning

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/18424824#28652974


Interview on the Today Show with Matt LAuer

[YvonneCa]

6. That was a great interview. I would have missed...

...it. (I may have to start watching TODAY again. :7 ) Thank you for posting the link.

[ProSense]

12. Very nice.

Thanks.

[TayTay]

5. Sen Kerry on MSNBC today (Wed, Jan 14)

with Andrea Mitchell, between 1 and 1:30 pm

Let us know how this goes. I have a doctor's appt at that time and can't watch. (Yeah, ironic.)

[Mass]

7. Did anybody see Kerry on Morning Joe?

http://www.fednews.com/transcript.htm?id=20090114t6053

[Blaukraut]

8. up at msnbc now

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28654009#28654009

[karynnj]

9. Nice interview

His answers were great. (Was that from his office or home? - either way very elegant.)

[ProSense]

13. Thanks for the link. Just watched.

Wonderful interview. JK seems really focused and happy.

[MarjorieG]

10. Given kudos and positive press, at least respectful, am I greedy to want it from MoDo?

Hubby thinks it a woman scorned, but, really, never a kind word, ever. Dismissive and insulting, always.

I loved Kerry's performance yesterday, low-key, expert, far less indulgent than Biden. Sorry, but people don't see the urgency of climate change, and it's good he shared (in a very conversational, not professorial way).

Mo said, "After enduring endless pompous lecturing from John Kerry on what she should read and think — a thinly veiled attempt to show the world that he would have made a better secretary of state, and indeed, thinks he was promised it by Obama — Hillary slathered on the oleo.

After his windy discourse on how scientists had “revised the levels of supportable greenhouse gas emissions from 550 parts per million to 450 to now 350,” Hillary replied: “You are eloquent in describing it, and you’ve been a leader in trying to sound the alarm on it for many years.”

That seemed to calm Kerry down a bit."

She was very pro Hill, which is fine and deserved, but why the nasty? Mo is 57 today, with maybe some regrets. Kerry swipes are beyond the equal opportunity skewering she's known for, and would like to know if anyone has history.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/opinion/14dowd.html?_r=1

[MBS]

11. I think your hubby is right n/t