Kerry on condiments, 2004, and Blago's hair

[Mass]

I dont particularly like these interviews, but nobody can say Kerry lacks a sense of humour

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19345.html

John F. Kerry is a Massachusetts senator, a D.C. VIP, a former presidential candidate and a man filled with wonkish knowledge on all sorts of topics. And while he never quite made it to the Oval Office, he gets to participate in an inauguration anyway — the inaugural edition of Answer This, POLITICO’s occasional series of interviews with leading, and would-be leading, political figures.

Q: Tell us your favorite joke.

A: On the advice of my attorney, my family and every member of my staff, I am no longer allowed to tell jokes.

Q: When’s the last time you used profanity?

A: Sh—, good question. Election Night 2004 comes to mind. Truth is, when I was a kid and my dad was stationed in Cold War Germany, even then the first foreign words I learned were swearwords, so I’m embarrassed to say I have deep roots in this area.

Q: How many hours of sleep do you get (on average)?

A: A lot less than when we were in the minority in the Senate. But usually I do well with five hours. I’m able to sleep anywhere. One of the benefits of running for president for two years is you really learn how to maximize time on buses, airplanes and motels.

Q: Describe your level of ambition.

A: I’ve mellowed over the years. Teresa helped me learn to appreciate the moment. I’ve never been happier in the Senate, and there’s something liberating about chairing the Foreign Relations Committee at this time in the world, with a big majority where we’re no longer just trying to stop bad things from happening. It’s a different kind of ambition. I’m in a hurry to get done the things that got me into politics in the first place but were out of reach in recent years here.

Q: You’re president of the United States for enough time to make only one executive decision. What is it?
A: Any opposing player who sacks, tackles, touches, breathes on or looks directly at Tom Brady is declared an enemy combatant.

Q: What’s a common and accepted practice for Americans nowadays that you think we’ll look back on with regret?

A: Up until this November, it was voting Republican.

Q: What is your favorite body part (on yourself) and why?

A: My face has been compared to New Hampshire’s “Old Man in the Mountain” (before it fell), and I’ve been called Lurch from “The Addams Family,” so there’s not a lot to choose from, but I’d have to go with my better-than-Rod-Blagojevich hair.

Q: What would you attempt to do if you knew that you could not fail?

A: Well, we already know what I’d attempt knowing I could fail. But for this, I’d say play left field for the Red Sox.

Q: On what types of products do you never go cheap, for the sake of quality?

A; Ketchup.

Q: Describe a few pet peeves of yours.

A: Beside 50,000 votes in Ohio? Probably people who don’t return phone calls. I try to always get back to people, and I tell my staff: Even if the answer is no, you’ve got to get back to people.

[karynnj]

1. I agree - he really does have a very nice sense of humor

The honesty alternating with self deprecating comments is really nice. He handled some very strange questions very well - including the inane question of the favorite body part.

Though my favorite answer was a serious one - that comes across as very serious. That is where he speaks of never having been happier in the Senate. It is really nice that he said "Teresa helped me learn to appreciate the moment." and that chairing the SFRC was liberating.

[MBS]

6. I also thought the comment about disloyalty was also interesting.

(See "part 2" in #4 on this thread). I wonder who he was thinking about . I can think of several candidates, alas.. ..

[Mass]

8. I missed the second page altogether. Interesting comment.

[Inuca]

17. That's the one tha stood out

for me as well. And in the funny category, the one about googling himself was really dangerous to the coffee I was sipping at the time. All in all, an inane interview but with some priceless and very illuminating answers.

[YvonneCa]

2. That interview is SO funny! Thank you for starting my day...

...with a smile. :) It's nice to see this side of Senator Kerry, given the last four years he's (and the rest of us) dealt with.

[MBS]

3. This is wonderful!

I sense a joint effort with David Wade (who's reportedly his alter ego anyway) in these answers. .:)

[MBS]

4. and here's part 2!

Q: How often do you Google yourself?

A: When I was growing up, the priests taught us to think that was a sin.

Q: What do you know now that you wish someone had told you 10 years ago?

A: How to give shorter speeches.

Q: What childhood event shaped or scarred you the most?

A: Seeing the differences between communism and the West up close as a kid. My father grounded me afterwards, but riding my bike into East Germany and seeing the sterile, cold buildings of the Soviets framed in a very real way the divide between our way of life and theirs.

Q: Would you rather live without music or live without TV?

A: TV.

Q; Would you rather be gossiped about or never talked about at all?

A: Never talked about at all.

Q: Think of one of your least favorite people in Washington and, without naming names, describe what makes that person so unappealing.

A: Disloyalty is the trait that burns me up.

Q; Let your mother know how much she means to you, in the form of a haiku.

A: Impossible in just 17 syllables. And trust me, up there in heaven, she knows.

Q: Bonus Round: Who would win in a street fight, Pat Buchanan or John McLaughlin?

A: Trust me, we’d all be winners in that scenario.

[Mass]

9. Thanks.

[karynnj]

14. This is a really beautiful answer

Q; Let your mother know how much she means to you, in the form of a haiku.

A: Impossible in just 17 syllables. And trust me, up there in heaven, she knows.

[Blaukraut]

5. Very nice interview, but the body part answer made me sad

While criticizing policy and/or actions is fair, I've always hated the stupid Lurch/JK comparisons mean-spirited people made. Seeing that Senator Kerry is well aware of being called Lurch makes me wonder how confident and self-assured a man he must be to be able to take comments like that in good humor and brush them off.

[TayTay]

7. Well, there are also the counter comments

Such as one from a "Kerry on your Corner" event last summer. The Senator Kerry went into an ice cream shop and talked for a bit with the owner and a clerk. The video interviewer asked what these folks thought of the good Senator. One word response: "handsome."

So sayeth that live person, up close and in person.

And yeah, this sounds just like the Senator. At least to me. (And I agree. I cannot stand disloyalty. Maybe it's a Boston thing.)

[karynnj]

10. That was so cute when the woman said that

I would assume that, from the people who count - starting with Teresa, he has more often heard that type of comment. His brain and heart are what makes him special though.

[Vektor]

25. I know...I feel bad that this trash talk has even reached his ears.

I think he's a very stately and handsome man, and I know people only knock him out of jealously, but still...the fact that he even has to hear it is disheartening.

[karynnj]

26. It is disheartening, but I think a 1997 comment here would be the one he cares about

"He's very hunky, very handsome. I would say he's as good - or better looking - than John Kennedy." — Teresa Heinz Kerry, 1997" Now, how many guys in there 50s get comments like that - from an incredibly classy beautiful woman.

Others:

""He is an attractive man, handsome." — Brit Hume, Fox News

"matinee-idol handsome." —Larry J. Sabato, Center for Politics

"Kennedy-like charisma" —Iowa City Press-Citizen

"Charismatic" —R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., New York Sun

"Do you have the charm and charisma and oratoric ability of John Kerry?" —Chris Matthews (to Joe Biden) MSNBC

"eloquent and highly charismatic" —Oakland Post

"handsome blue blood" —US News & World Report

"an extremely handsome man with a head chiselled from marble" — Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker

"He's tall, he's attractive, he's charismatic" —Bill McInturff, GOP pollster

"Handsome man. Lot of charisma, that guy." — Joe Kernan, CNBC

"Tall, handsome" —Daily News

Here's a batch from 2000, when Al Gore was considering him as a VP candidate (so some of this may be in comparison to Al Gore):

"charismatic Vietnam War hero" —Newsweek

"charismatic, decorated Vietnam hero?" —Newsweek

"Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards, who are both seen as charismatic campaigners conveying a youthful, energetic image." —Financial Times

"a charismatic campaigner " —USA Today

"A handsome, decorated Vietnam veteran" —Raleigh News and Observer

"tall, handsome, reserved" — Pittsburg Post-Gazette

"very handsome, very articulate" —Linda Douglass, ABC News

"an attractive, aggressive Vietnam War hero" —Deborah Orin, NY Post

"young, sort of vigorous" —Julia Reed, MSNBC (COMMENT - sort of?????? 110 mile bike rides are sort of??)

"tall, handsome, reserved" - Mary McGrory, Washington Post

And here's a handful from before 2000:

"tall, handsome and rich" —US News & World Report

"rich and handsome, Ivy-educated, patrician Democratic senator" — Bob Schieffer, CBS News

"tall, handsome" — Washingtonian

"handsome and successful" —Oregonian

"tall, 50-ish, attractive" —Cindy Adams, New York Post

"An attractive Yale graduate decorated for naval heroics in Viet Nam before he turned against the war, the Irish-American Kerry is conspicuously Kennedyesque." —Kurt Andersen, Time'

http://www.radosh.net/archive/001776.html

Then consider the other people in politics. Other than Obama, who gives him any competition? (I absolutely didn't get those that thought Edwards better looking - his looks were classic, but boring.)

[Inuca]

27. Nice list :-) n/t

[karynnj]

28. I really liked when I first saw it

One of them was really a compliment to Senator Kerry. In the section from 2000, when Gore was considering him and then made the wrong decision, there was this one:

""Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards, who are both seen as charismatic campaigners conveying a youthful, energetic image." —Financial Times"

Now this was in the context of Gore - who is who was slightly over 4 years younger than Senator Kerry. Kerry was nearly 10 years older than Edwards.

[ProSense]

11. Haha! I love it,

Especially the first two :rofl:, ketchup and this:

Q: Bonus Round: Who would win in a street fight, Pat Buchanan or John McLaughlin?

A: Trust me, we’d all be winners in that scenario.

LOL!

[ObamaKerryDem]

12. I LOVED this. I totally LOL'd. He's hilarious! :D

Even though during the '04 race, they branded and attempted to define him as this bland, stuffy "elitist" ( which was really convincing coming the campaign/supporters of a guy from the very impoverished Bush clan.. :eyes: ), this interview shows him as the warm, funny, and engaging person he really is, outside of the one dimensional characture they tried to make him into. He's actually very funny. I like his sharp witted and even self-depracating sense of humor. :D I especially liked that little quip he made in response to the "Google yourself" question. LMAO! Raunchy! :evilgrin:

I also like how he can poke fun at himself and make light, even out of some of the nasty, hurtful things that were said about him (like the "Lurch" BS). It makes me sad that he even had to know about that; think of how that must've felt! :( But he seems to take it in stride and I admire that. He's so far above all those peoople anyway..

Thanks so much for sharing this! :)

[ladym55]

13. This was great

And once again, I apologize (while cringing) for the State of Ohio in 2004.

What a good sense of humor and sense of proportion about things.

[YvonneCa]

15. No need to apologize for Ohio...

...at all. What happened in 2004 was done TO Ohio, and to John Kerry. I still feel terrible for the people in your state...they were done wrong.

[karynnj]

16. On Morning Joe, Buchanan did not like the answer to the last question

His response had none of the humor or fun of Kerry's responses - He mentioned Ohio and not getting SoS. He then put up a picture of Kerry windsurfing.

Joe then said he was elitist enough that he didn't see the problem with windsurfing - that that is what people do in FL and that he was impressed that a man Kerry's age could windsurf. Mika then said that she (had dinner with ?) her father, Lugar and Kerry and he was a "lovely person".

[Inuca]

18. I think Mika said

"drinks" and I did not hear Lugar's name, but then again I was half asleep so nevermind :-).

[karynnj]

19. You might be right - I was half asleep as well

[ObamaKerryDem]

22. Me too! LOL. I only really started paying attention when they showed the pic of him windsurfing..

and a few quick comments afterwards and couldn't seem to find a transcript anywhere, so I'm grateful it was posted here. :) And I was pleasantly surprised to hear of Joe Scarborough of all people and Mika taking up for him like that, if only in this lighthearted exchange. :)

Buchanan wishes he could windsurf like that. LOL..

[globalvillage]

23. Oh, my. That would be ugly.

Especially the people on shore poking their eyes out with sticks.

[ObamaKerryDem]

24. LMAO..perish the thought! n/t

[TayTay]

20. Hmmm, coincidence on this or not?

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Time: 10:30 A.M.
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Building
Presiding: Senator Kerry


Witnesses:
+Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
CSIS Counselor and Trustee
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Washington, DC

+General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.)
President
The Scowcroft Group
Washington, DC

[karynnj]

21. That seems more than coincidental

and may explain why Kerry and Lugar (if he was) were meeting with him.