Nobody Likes John Kerry

There is only one thing that can unite our divided nation. There is really only one thing that we can all come together on.

Nobody Likes John Kerry

(CBS News) On February 1, 2013, U.S. Senator John Kerry was sworn in as Secretary of State at the Senate Foreign Relations Room in the U.S. Capitol.

John Kerry, 'war hero' and sullen youth, following his return
from two months in combat and four months in theater,
Photo: Kerry accuses American policy of "war crimes"
in Viet Nam.

Kerry is a skillful manipulator and for some, he's a political tool, with few if any scruples -- not unlike Hillary R. Clinton, his predecessor. He's a Washington Insider who is trusted by people who have a stake in his votes and in his decision making. But in my search, and I haven't asked his daughter, nobody ever said that they liked him.

The Acorn and the Tree

(Wikipedia - edited for content) Kerry attended boarding schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science and became a member of the influential Skull and Bones secret society. He was commissioned an officer in the US Naval Reserve in 1966, and during 1968–1969 served an abbreviated four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a PCF, also referred to as a Swift Boat. For that service, he was awarded combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.

Commentary: That's a lot of hardware for four months in-country when you consider that included a month checking in and a month checking out (military processing). A virtually untrained officer (he served as a junior division officer for six months prior on a destroyer), put in command of a Swift boat such as Kerry, relied on his political connections with Skull and Bones to earn the awards that made him a 'war hero'. I've met heroes like Kerry...

Kerry's commanding officer, LCDR George Elliott, joked to Douglas Brinkley in 2003 that he didn't know whether to court-martial Kerry for beaching the boat without orders or give him a medal for saving the crew. Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star, and Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt flew into An Thoi to personally award the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with V device and three Purple Hearts that Kerry managed to receive during sixty days of service on a river boat. Can I call it 'rigged' when the Navy Chief of Staff  (highest ranking serving officer in the US Navy) flies to Viet Nam to decorate an obscure lieutenant junior grade?*

*As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 200 Vietnam veterans formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), subsequently renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards. The group included several members of Kerry's unit, such as Larry Thurlow, who commanded a swift boat alongside of Kerry's, and Stephen Gardner, who served on Kerry's boat.

Securing an early return to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesman and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes."

Commentary: John Kerry became a darling of the progressive movement then he married the "Ketsup Widdow", Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Heinz. Teresa Heinz married well before she married Kerry -- becoming heiress to the H. J. Heinz Company after her previous husband, Senator Henry John Heinz III died in a helicopter crash. Thus Kerry obtained access to the Heinz fortune.

(Wikipedia) Heinz and Kerry live an affluent life. They own a six-floor, $7 million townhome in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, a $9 million ocean-front home on Nantucket, a $5 million ski retreat at Sun Valley, Idaho, a $4 million estate in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, near the Heinz family's home base of Pittsburgh, and a $5 million home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

The Kerry Philosophy: (H/T AT) "Like the addlepated women who write love letters to an imprisoned murderer in the belief that the love of a good woman will turn him around, the U.S. foreign policy establishment repeatedly acts as though the power of their love and financial generosity will turn foreign thugs into responsible democratic leaders." President Jimmy Carter did this with the Soviet Union until Reagan upset their game, and now under the Obama Outreach Doctrine, we are doing it with the Islamists. John Kerry is the latest apple polisher to carry out the Obama philosophy of appeasement.