Shit. Where the hell is Richard Holbrooke when we really need him?!?
Oh. Yeah. I forgot.
Fuck.
Kerry, to me, seems like a guy who hides a mediocre intellect behind a patrician accent.
Why? Because it’s a name you’ve heard before?
For all of Kerry’s vaunted Senate Foreign Policy chairman experience (as of 2009, before which it was Biden), he doesn’t have any significant foreign policy accomplishments.
Huntsman, pace you and Frylock, is actually a very bad choice, since America’s chief diplomat needs to be able to speak unquestionably for the President (if he/she is going to be taken seriously in negotiations), which will be compromised by the fact that Huntsman is a member of the opposition. His appointment as ambassador to China was a mistake (and it forestalled developing Chinese diplomacy chops in a Democrat) and that mistake should not (and will not) be magnified by putting him in charge of State.
It’s gonna be Suzie.
He headed a lot of investigations on foriegn policy matters, most famously leading to the Iran-Contra affiar, and he helped bring about re-approchement with Vietnam. And he was the spokesman for Vietnam Veteran’s against the War ,which I’d say counts as a foreign policy success, even if its not exactly a traditional item on a politicians resume.
I think he has at least as strong a resume as anyone that’s been mentioned here (well, other then Bill Clinton, of course). Considerably more so then Ambassador Rice.
In anycase, Obama has worked with him in the Senate and on the Campaign Trail, and so I imagine has a decent idea of his abilities, one way or another.
I did not neglect to consider the Kerry report. Instead, I also considered that it is well-nigh thirty years old now. Anything within the last couple decades?
Ahhh, I dunno… if that happened I’d be con-Vinced it was suicide.
I was responding to your post that he “didn’t have any foreign policy accomplishments”. If you were considering a foreign policy accomplishment of his while you were typing that, it probably would help if you’d added something about that.
But the POW stuff and re-approchment with the Vietnamese that I mentioned was in the 90’s. And just a year or so ago, he was the administrations point guy in getting the New START treaty through the Senate.
Has Susan Rice done anything equivalent? (an honest question, I don’t know).
<Clouseau voice on>Noot enny moure!</>