Shocking. Vennochi column: Kerry finds his voice, and it’s in ‘D

[Mass]

Granted, she cant escape the memes (stiff, not quite Ted Kennedy, wanted SoS) and it comes as a bashing of Obama, but still, coming from her, it is surprising, and she bashes Brown in the meantime.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/03/17/kerry_finds_his_voice_and_its_in_d/

Kerry finds his voice, and it’s in ‘D’
By Joan Vennochi
Globe Columnist / March 17, 2011
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SENATOR JOHN Kerry has been his party’s presidential nominee and its whipping boy after losing.


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Now, after clawing his way back to respect, the senior senator from Massachusetts is starting to do what he should do at this moment in political time. He’s finally celebrating the Ted Kennedy definition of Democrat.

He doesn’t have the liberal lion’s unique gusto. But he’s speaking up, Kerry-style, for those old liberal values — community action and fuel assistance programs — in the budget debate.

He is also framing foreign policy decisions as moral issues for the United States and the international community. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry was out ahead of the White House, calling for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down. Writing for the Washington Post, he argued for a no-fly zone over Libya as a way to stop Moammar Khadafy from a bloody massacre of the Libyans who are bravely rebelling against him.
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The Democrat in the White House has backed down, in the name of pragmatism and reelection. President Obama is holding anti-bullying conferences, much the way President Clinton embraced non-controversial causes like V-chips. He’s cutting programs for poor people to show he’s no bleeding heart liberal. After Democrats like Kerry stood with him on health care reform, he’s letting Republicans like Brown water it down. When it comes to Libya, Obama doesn’t want to look like George W. Bush when he invaded Iraq; he would rather look like George H.W. Bush, who in 1991 encouraged the Iraqi people to stand up to Saddam Hussein and then watched while they were slaughtered.

The world looks different from the White House. A president faces different constraints than the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — particularly if all that president wants is a second term and his advisers are telling him to hug the center no matter how hard the left tries to push him.

Kerry is in a different place, with a different view. Perhaps it allows him to finally see Kennedy’s true legacy. It is better for people to know what you believe in and dislike it, than to dislike you because you lack beliefs.

[Luftmensch067]

1. I agree, from Vennochi and the Globe, this is their version of an encomium

But it still pisses me the heck off! JK has been what he is all along, they just can't admit they were wrong about him, even now. I know I should be grateful that she is saying anything remotely decent, but I still think she's a spiteful hack.

[Mass]

2. I agree. I would also assume her next column will bash Patrick for Fidelity layoffs.\nt

[Luftmensch067]

3. Funny who the REAL flip-floppers are, huh?

Vennochi switches direction so often she could power Cape Wind all by herself.

[karynnj]

7. LOL - I love that line

In fact, it could be applied to Scott Brown and, of course, Mitt Rommney. (On Brown, what is so different from his new small business bills that he co-sponsored vs the one he voted against last fall? )

[YvonneCa]

9. ...

...:7 Good one!

[ProSense]

8. Yup.

Finding his voice every year since BCCI.

Thanks Joan for waking up.

[karynnj]

4. Over all this is a shockingly good oped

I’ve written that Kerry is running for secretary of state, and it is true he would like the job. But he is also running for something else. It’s a personal race for the comfort zone of saying what he really believes, without worrying about political consequences. In the past, he always ended up edging away from boldness. It happens to all politicians who come to accept the conventional wisdom that the safe middle ground is the only way to advance their ambitions.

Although I can argue that Kerry has, more often than most politicians, done unpopular things, it is good that she sees him doing this now. Same with saying that I have seen no stiffness picking up kids - he very clearly likes kids.

No one will be Teddy, but when Kerry is Kerry, he is incredibly good - and judging from the various hockey game videos, he is a very happy man. I think he was a bold leader from 2005 on - and even in 2004, Kennedy saw him as from his "wing" of the party. Though it is hard to say the Senator, who called for "regime change at home" when Bush invaded Iraq, shied away from boldness, it is clear that in the early 2000s, Kerry was trying to gain the leadership by finding common ground with the centrists - doing things like being the leftmost member of the New Democrats.

[Mass]

5. But expect some Kerry bashing from some Obama supporters on this one.

It already started on BMG.

This said, what bothers me with her column is that I am unclear what her goal was : bashing Obama and talking about Kerry. I basically agree with her criticism of Obama, but I also think that, had Obama adopted the approach she approves now, she would have an editorial about how partisan he was and how bad it is.

[karynnj]

6. I looked at BMG and saw one post, that no one has commented on yet

It was kind of weird, so I didn't comment - as it may well just sink. It managed to bash both Obama and Kerry. (In Kerry's case because the poster thinks he has lots to make up for.)

[beachmom]

10. I'm just going to tuck this article in this thread:

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/03/17/031711-news-hillary-1-2/

I know we have all disagreed on Libya, but the above is ridiculous. This tweet sums it up:

http://twitter.com/#!/attackerman/status/48397988359438336

This reads a lot like Hillaryland giving Obama the finger on the way out: http://bit.ly/eMfCw7

Pretty bad.

[Mass]

11. OK, I am not sure what to do with that.

Any notion of a Clinton insider talking to the media makes me nervous: It seems like deja-vu all over again, and the question is whether it is another effort to get her to run in 2012, without her being behind it, or whether she is behind the leaks. And previous reports of the same type have often been wrong. I believe she found out that being SoS was a hard work, and one term is enough, just as most of the previous SoS did. I say that with all the dislike I have for the Clinton.

The article starts with a premise that is wrong. HRC had already said she was done with any elected or political appointee role in 2012. There is nothing new there.

Personally, I think the article is ridiculous, without facts, with a lot of unattributed quotes, just the type of reporting that prevents me from believing in the media.

[Inuca]

12. Clicked on your first link, got

"page not found". Mass seems to have found it earlier, strange....

[karynnj]

14. Click on the second - then take the tiny url in that

(That's how I got it.)

[beachmom]

15. That's what you get with a crappy iPad only newspaper.

Go to the tweet instead. Maybe it only allows links from social media.

[karynnj]

13. Yuck - though none of those sources are on record

Hillary was the slowest to move publicly on Egypt, even after the President did. It was Clinton out there speaking of Mubarak as a family friend.

The fact is that Hillary is very far from the star diplomat that her people expected her to be. So far, I count one big victory, getting Armenia and Turkey to sign their agreement after Armenia got cold feet. If these peopel are good sources, my guess is that with the progressive chaos, her people (hopefully not her) are trying to insure that Obama, not Hillary is blamed if things become more of a mess. (I think the HILLARY Clinton people are more into back stabbing than her husband's - and Hunter Thompson said of him - that "Nixon stabbed his Enemies in the back, but Clinton did it to his Friends."

Like you, I don't know if the no fly zone and further involvement - which at this point it would have to be - is the right idea. I do hear Burns as having said that the world's verbal support of the rebels itself makes him in the future a bigger threat than he was earlier this year - and his history is of supporting terrorism.

It scares me to write the last sentence - because it sounds like 2002 - and Saddam.