Reply #3: Kerry did not white wash the President, but was 100% against coups

[karynnj]

He was the only top politician I saw willing to speak out against the coup, putting an oped saying that in the Miami Herald. His position was and is honorable. The Clintons had no problems with the Contras in the 1980s and Bill Clinton did not close the school of Americas or really change it much. (I was proud that my daughter went with kids from her college last year to protest the school of Americas.) Kerry led in the 1980s, as a very new Senator, against this.

I think that he is speaking out on his own positions and giving the President his best advise. I assume that he will continue doing this. It is his job and what he has done since 1971. He has a far better platform now than ever before - though in 2004, we all hoped he would be President. More and more, I return to the thought that I had in 2004 that he was almost a stealth change agent - a patrician eloquent statesman on the surface with a hidden activist inside.

I don't think he will abandon his ideals or not do his job - I don't think he has done anything that he didn't believe in and nothing has left him with "egg on his face". The closest was his comments about Karzai's bother, where he was broadsided, but he quickly spoke out that Congress wasn't given the information they should have had. The fact is that the State Department should have informed him before he spoke to Karzai. As to his negotiations with Karzai, it was far better that Karzai agree and they be canceled, then Karzai refuse to hold them. The fact though is the only thing that will give Karzai any credibility is changing. (I suspect that Kerry now has a vested interest in monitoring this with hearings.)