JK Gave a Speech on Energy Independence today..

[ObamaKerryDem]

..at the National Press Club in DC. Hopefully there will be video soon! :):

http://kerry.senate.gov/press/release/?id=256ad554-f795-450e-b7a2-1102fef942a1

[Mass]

1. Reuters has a blurb about it.

Amusing to see how, after each speech, the media rediscover how he can be feisty. Short memory.

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2011/04/12/john-kerry-has-had-it-up-to-here-with-the-flat-earth-caucus/

John Kerry has had it up to HERE with “The Flat Earth Caucus”
APR 12, 2011 15:24 EDT

CHARLIE SHEEN | CLIMATE CHANGE | CONGRESS | ECONOMY | ENERGY | JOHN KERRY | THE NEW REPUBLIC
You remember John Kerry, right? Tall, silver-haired, urbane enough to be accused of being French. But there’s a feisty side to the senior senator from Massachusetts, and it was on display at a forum on energy and economic growth, where Kerry teed off on congressional Republicans and others who doubt the seriousness of the challenge of climate change.

“After a while you get exasperated and jaded and frustrated about it all,” Kerry told The New Republic forum at the National Press Club. “I’ve had it just about up to here with America’s indifference to the realities of this crisis … the United States is like an ostrich putting its head in the sand.”

How do you feel about the U.S. political establishment, Senator Kerry? “I don’t know what’s happened to us in the body politic of this country where facts and science seem to be so easily shunted aside and disposed of in favor of simple sloganeering, pure ideology and little bromides of politics that are offered up, that offer no solution to anything but might get you through an election.”

Your Republican colleagues in Congress? “In the Republican party … about half the class that came in (to Congress) this year doubts that humans have anything to do with climate change or that climate change is happening … The Flat Earth Caucus is growing.”

(...)

[karynnj]

2. I completely love this article

That is the John Kerry that we have so often seen. (it makes me think back to yesterday's Patrick comments you posted, where he said that the country never got to know him.) He has always been feisty (or passionate) on issues he cares about. )

[ObamaKerryDem]

3. Me too! I love his comment about "America being like the ostrich..

..with its head in the sand" LOL! But unfortunately all too true!

And you--and Gov. Patrick-- are absolutely right. If only more people had gotten to see the real JK, not the one dimensional, RW meme created, media enhanced and enabled characature..*sigh*

[karynnj]

4. There is no one I can think of in the Democratic party who uses

language like this so well - speaking off the cuff. (and yes, I include Obama, who is also very good. In 2003 or early 2004, when I read Tour of Duty, I loved the excerpts of his journal and his letters. His descriptions not only describe things well, they paint vibrant pictures in your mind.

[ObamaKerryDem]

6. Totally agree! There was an article from the 2004 campaign..

..I think from the primaries, that mentioned his love of poetry and that he writes some of his own sometimes. I can definitely believe that! He is just so good with words and like you said, painting vibrant pictures with them. The letters in "Tour of Duty"--great book--blew me away too. Even as a young teenager, some of the things he wrote..wow. There was one passage about wanting to go out in nature, that talked about a princess, etc. Can't remember it all offhand (and my copy of the book is back home in AZ unfortunately! :(), but it was beautiful. And his letters home..wow too. I can definitely sense a kind of poetry in him and just an overall talent for words and conveying a message through them. I admit that I am dying for him to write a book--I know he's written a couple, but I mean a full out auto biography (though his 2003 book had elements of that in it and was of course great). But I know he is not out for the fame (*cough* Scott Brown *cough*) and generally is a more private kind of person so that might not be for awhile if ever...but man it would be great! Nothing wrong with writing an auto biography at all, but I just don't feel Brown and people like him have quite EARNED, getting to that point in their careers before doing so, especially when they are doing it in place of the substantive town halls and other events JK is doing.

But I digress, lol :) And agree that he's remarkable at this! He just coins these terms so effortlessly, but so effectively!

[MBS]

5. Thanks! n/t