"Kerry: Obama wasted 1 1/2 years on Mideast peace, may try again soon" (Politico)

[beachmom]

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry said Tuesday that President Barack Obama frittered away the first half of his term on an ill-advised approach to seeking peace in the Middle East, but may "step out" within weeks with a new initiative to break the gridlock.

Speaking to a gathering in Washington of leaders from the Muslim world, Kerry said the administration's effort to set the table for broader talks by resolving the impasse over Jewish settlements in the West Bank was futile. However, he suggested that the administration may move soon to get the peace process going in order to head off a possible showdown at the United Nations in September.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0411/Kerry_Obama_wasted_1_12_years_on_Mideast_peace_may_try_again_soon.html

Video at the link. I haven't had a chance to look at it to see if the headline fits what happened.

[wisteria]

1. Well, it seems to be just as reported, but I find it surprising if Obama would move

quickly on something like this. He has seemed so reluctant to act quickly up until now.

[politicasista]

2. The title seems spin mode

but would be very, very careful if I was a Democrat in Congress right now (minus POTUS/VPOTUS).

Anything a Democrat says/does, or and article with a title like this sets a lot of ardent Obama supporters off in the blogsphere. It is sometimes bad, name calling and all, that it's impossible to visit some blogs now.

It's more about, "What Democrat did/said what to/about Obama today?" Therefore, people are just reacting defensively to anything that could be used against Obama and complaining that Democrats had eight or more long years to oppose Bushes and Clinton, but want to oppose Obama? Thank goodness don't watch cable talk shows!

[Mass]

4. So, you suggest that dems withdraw criticisms of the Obama administration because of some

cheerleaders blogs? Really?

Sorry, I would want to see Congress start to try and fight for us, not for the administration. I dread tomorrow's speech because clearly he is going to propose something on the entitlements (and it needs to be proposed), but from what has been pushed, it is more likely to be bad.

[Mass]

5. OOps. It should read withhold, not withdraw

[politicasista]

10. No, I don't like the bipartisan thing either

and I agree with you, we should prepare for the worst.

[karynnj]

8. It is not spin - my regret is that it ignores some very serious good insight

on a serious foreign policy and emphasized conflict, that really does not exist.

The real news here is the hope that the fear of the September vote triggers Israel to realize that there chances of getting even what they need is waning. (Brezinski speaks of this at 1:20) Kerry suggests the POSSBILITY that Netanyahu will have a plan, but Brezinski says that we have to be involved to make this happen.

This is not a political forum. This is an international foreign policy forum. Kerry is there as a US Senator and a known confidant of Obama, but mostly as a very informed, thoughtful man. (Just as say - the Jordanian man is representing his government, but is - in many cases, giving his opinions.) Kerry is not their as an Obama surrogate. He was an excellent surrogate during the 2008, speaking on political talk shows and elsewhere - in fact, he was often used as an attack dog. It was generous of Kerry to put himself in that position, when he could have taken the far more comfortable senior statesman role.

I assume you did not listen to the 20 of so minutes starting shortly after 1 hour. This is an important discussion - and Kerry's knowledgeable and thoughtful comments were well received by the other panelist - most enthusiastically and importantly by the Jordanian. I seriously doubt that this type of forum actually is watched by most Obama posters. Kerry's audience is not the blogs - where I am sure you will see someone post this and you will find people angry with Kerry. Kerry is NOT in Obama's administration and he has every right to speak on foreign policy - something that he has done since at least 1966. He does take to care to say - when appropriate that he is speaking for himself.

[politicasista]

11. I didn't see the video yet, just made an observation

I agree that Kerry is not a part of the O administration, and has a right to speak out and is chair of the SFRC. Appreciate the strides he has made in foreign policy, but it seems that it has come at a price in MA.

There was an angry LTTE in The Bay State Banner (an AA newspaper) putting him on full blast for being M.I.A. at the Kennedy Institute groundbreaking ceremony while Brown embarrassed himself and the Kennedy family at the event for political reasons and selling books. That doesn't sound good for many of his MA consitituents that really miss Kennedy and his leadership on issues of Medicare, SS,

LIHEAP. Hope the PR people, Wade et al. are writing a push back. They are going to need it between now and 2014. Even though he has gotten some positive press for Head Start, Youthbuild, etc, IMO, AA MA as a whole doesn't seem respect him like they did Kennedy. JMHO

[karynnj]

12. Kerry and Inoyye who were scheduled were working on the continuing resolution

ALL Congressmen were suppose to stay near DC in case there were votes. I am sure that Senator Kennedy (and Vicki) would have wanted Kerry to be exactly where he was - doing his job, using whatever intelligence and skill he had to add to the process. Kerry did not miss that for a foreign policy event - he missed it because he was working to do what he could do to protect Medicare, SS, LIHEAP etc, that HE has also fought his entire career for.

Tay Tay and others, who actually live in MA have told you that Kerry does have enormous support from the MA AA communitee - he has always received their votes.

[politicasista]

13. That's the point

He may get their votes, but why people still disrespect him for doing that (protecting all of the above) is beyond us.:shrug:

Maybe he should do more town hall meetings in or near Boston (not that the Globe will cover it, but the Bay State Banner will, they covered his Head Start visit), but it is discouraging to them to see a nobody like Brown doing those type of events and getting all the media attention while Kerry, their Senior Senator is ignored and M.I.A, even when he isn't.

IMO, that's why the turnout was low in that special elections, there was a feeling while Coakley would be an improvement, no one was going to fight for them like Kennedy did.


Sorry to ruin the thread, but it's just an observation of everything I have seen, read.

[karynnj]

14. Have you been to Massachusetts?

If Tay Tay, Blaucraut, Mass, Whometense, ObamaKerryDem, Luftmensch, NoisyDemocrat, Cadmium etc posted that African Americans in MA don't respect Kerry, I would believe it and hope he could find a way to rectify it. You take a squeaky wheel writing into the paper and conclude that is the point of view of the entire community.

I also think that the fact that Kerry was the mentor of both Setti Warren and Alyssa Pressley might help.

[politicasista]

15. No, I have never been, but would like to visit Martha's Vineyard

one day. Been a southerner all my life and only thing ever taught to me about MA, and Boston, was its troubled history towards race relations, mainly during the bussing era of the 1970s, 80s, 90s. Boston has a new NAACP Chair hoping to erase the stigma that the city and state (New England) are blackmarks of racism, and cities like Worcester and Northampton (as Mass posted) are getting more diverse. And both Ayanna and Setti are doing fine jobs, so I applaud the Kerry factor.

I guess it just tiring to to see people who try hard get disrespected and link to people (i.e. Romney) or lesser former presidential candidates (i.e. Dukakis) or those that do not have the state's or city's interest at heart, and seeing them for who they aren't, rather than who they are. But, the president has daily detractors, but none are are bad as those there in MA.

[karynnj]

16. I spent a lot of time in Worcester and though it might be getting more diverse,

it seemed far less diverse than most cities in NJ. Looking at Wikipedia it is slightly less than 7% AA. The fact is that New England is an area that has attracted fewer blacks than many other areas. (That is why the Sharpton attack on Howard Dean - that he had either no or few Blacks in his administration while governor of VT was completely unfair. In 2005, there were less than 1% AA in the state.)

[politicasista]

17. Thanks for the correction n/t

[TayTay]

18. If you find yourself in Boston

Please take the http://www.afroammuseum.org/trail.htm">Black Heritage Trail. It details the extensive history of African Americans in early boston. This will also introduce you to American Founding Fathers, like Prince Hall, who are not in the hsitory books, but should be.

[Mass]

3. Seems he was showing a lot of frustration. Who would not.

But if Kerry is showing frustration, it is not good sign for Obama, given he has been one of the most loyal supporters.

[karynnj]

6. The video is well worth watching

Starting at slightly after the 1 hour point gets most of what is said.

I think the title of the article is problematic, though it can be constructed out of what Kerry said - at about 1 hour 16 minutes. The comment was not an attack on the Obama administration, but part of a request that people with influence to try to use influence to push for something that moves things forward. Kerry's comment at about 1 hour spoke of Netanyahu potentially putting out a plan and Obama MAYBE maling a contribution. Zakaria expressed disbelieve that anything could be done in 6 months that could not be done in 2 and a half years. (Kerry smiled and joked that he was going well out on a limb to say it was a possibility. He mentioned then that they could jump directly to defining the borders of a two state solution.

Later after Nasser Judeh, Jordan's foreign minister, said he welcomed Kerry's comments, Kerry's response was to ask people to help and to in more detail say that concentrating on settlements was a waste of time. Judeh ( and Bresinski) also backed Kerry's comments on Libya - agreeing with Kerry that the legitimacy of the the Libyan intervention required NOT expanding the goals. Zakaria obviously favors regime change.)

[Luftmensch067]

7. Thank you for this analysis!

I have such a bad signal where I am that I couldn't get the video to stream so that I could make any sense of it and I was hoping for one of your cogent summaries with commonsense interpretation. I will watch it on my own when I can, but it seemed to me that the headline must be stretching/twisting its view of what JK said. It's simply out of character for him to directly criticize in as judgmental a way as it seemed to indicate. From what you've written of the actual substance of the discussion, it sounds like a very important conversation and I'll look forward to watching it!

[karynnj]

9. The 20 or so most significant minutes are

start a few minutes after the 1 hour mark. Nasser Judeh makes some excellent comments starting about 1 hour 20 minutes.

One point that Kerry makes at another point is that he references a Zakaria comment To the Turkish representative that Turkey was the big power in the region before the British and French were and then before the US, Kerry noted that he was speaking of outside powers and spoke of the region's people's own aspirations.