I once worked for a boss who was described as "uncomfortable in his own skin." His awkward nervousness and self-conscious, out-of-sync behavior made everyone around him ill-at-ease. His inability to connect with other people resulted in a rash of stupid decisions. He was the worst boss I ever had.
Richard Nixon was uncomfortable in his own skin, too. Period photos tell the story. The scowl. The wringing hands. Eating ketchup-laden cottage cheese at his desk in the oval office. Walking on a California beach wearing shorts, knee-high black dress socks and wing tips. Upper lip sweat. Hunched over a desk, cheerless and glowering, as he proofreads his carefully-edited, attempt-to-rewrite-history memoir.
I want a president who is comfortable with him/herself. John F. Kennedy was that way. (RFK, less so.) Ronald Reagan knew exactly who he was. And was untroubled by it. Same with Bill Clinton. And John McCain, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman. These people are, in today's lexicon, 'centered' - calm, unanxious and sure of themselves. Al Gore seemed discomfited in 2000 and, in my opinion, now seems even more so. He comes across as unconnected and slightly unhinged.
Which brings me to John Kerry. He of that long face, which - when at rest - seems grim. His ponderous speech and intonation that makes Every Word Seem Important. And, therefore, makes All His Words Seem Unimportant. He projects stiffness and discomfort with hand gestures that appear forced and, sometimes, out-of-sync with his own voice. He appears to be unable to successfully tell a joke. Or laugh at himself. Kerry has a tendency to dwell on his accomplishments of 35 years ago, as though he has done nothing of significance since then. Such attributes neither inspire confidence nor indicate leadership ability.
Kerry claims to have a 'secret plan' to get us out of Iraq. ("I've got big cards to play here to bring others to the table.") How strange that the equally-awkward and somber Richard Nixon offered a 'secret plan' to get us out of Vietnam during the 1968 election campaign.
In 1968, I was still working for that oddball boss. It was one of the more distressing experiences of my working life. But I got through it. And the country got through the Nixon presidency, thank goodness.
John Kerry will not get my vote. He's not comfortable with himself. And I'm not comfortable having him as the boss of America. (posted 8/6/04)
Best Quote During The Campaign was from Michael Graham: "Listening to John Kerry complain about the scrutiny his Vietnam record is getting is like Pamela Anderson complaining about the fact that guys keep staring at her breasts. What the hell did you expect?"
The Second-Best Quote was from Andrew Ferguson, writing in The Weekly Standard: "The same frustration led directly to the bizarre outcome of this year's primaries, when Democrats nominated a charmless and undistinguished candidate whom no one seemed to like very much and who displays a dazzling lack of the most elementary political skills, such as being able to deliver a speech without boring half his audience into paralytic catatonia."
Fossil Hypocrite: I think we can all agree that John F. Kerry is a craggy old fossil, and also is known as the Global Warming Ghoul. Federal Aviation Administration records indicate that the family of U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry owns a private jet, despite his position on combatting fossil fuels in the new administration. Private jets have been estimated to emit upward of 40 times as much carbon per passenger as commercial flights.
"We look forward to the anti-carbon lectures from a guy who travels the globe on private jets and luxury yachts," quipped a New York Post editorial last year. In 2019, John Kerry headed to Iceland on a private jet to receive the Arctic Circle award for climate leadership.
Kerry received the award, which took the form of an iceberg sculpture, for being "a consistent voice pressuring the American authorities to commit to tackle environmental matters."
Furthermore, with Kerry's encouragement, Biden signed an executive order requiring departments to pursue climate change regulation creating new task forces and requiring in-depth strategic plans - in other words, government busywork.
"The order also requires measures that will impact employees in the fossil fuel industry. It includes everything from cutting any current subsidies, to trying to eliminate industry financing globally, to eliminating new leases of natural gas and oil exploration on federal land, to putting renewable eyesores like wind and solar farms on those same lands. It goes on for dozens of paragraphs. Just canceling the Keystone XL pipeline cost 11,000 jobs.
Biden's plan is more aggressive than the one implemented by his former boss, Barack Obama. According to National Economic Research Associates, that plan was estimated to eliminate 6.5 million American industrial jobs by 2040 and cost $15,000 per household. Biden has moved the target date for zero-emission forward 15 years, so the impact on jobs and cost will be more considerable."
Kerry knows this is a waste of time, but he doesn't care. Kerry told reporters that Biden "knows [the] Paris [Accord target] alone is not enough. Not when almost 90% of all of the planet's emissions, global emissions come from outside of U.S. borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn't solved." Kerry explained that the United States needed to pay through the nose and lose jobs "to ensure other countries reduce their emissions. China and India are the two primary sources of carbon emissions, and the Paris Accords give them a pass for years after other signatories commit to achieving net-zero."
6.5 million jobs lost … for no reason. Kerry also said that laid-off XL pipeline workers could probably get jobs making solar panels. Or something. (China currently produces 75% of the world's solar panels, so good luck with that.) In other words, let 'em eat cake.
Want more stuff about Kerry? Read Howie Carr's piece in the Boston Herald titled 'John Kerry's back, in all of his tone-deaf glory'.
Sample: "John Kerry has escaped from Madame Tussaod's Wax Museum and is back in the BS business now that another doddering old codger, Dementia Joe Biden, is ensconced in the White House." And: "All these union workers need to do is make 'better choices'.
If you're John Forbes Kerry, the 'better choices' are so simple. I mean, would you rather go 2,000 feet down into a coal mine on the midnight shift and get black lung, or would you prefer to be chauffeured to dinner at the Chanticleer Inn on Nantucket and order Halibut a la Provencal with puree pommes ($46) and then wash it down with a moderately priced $600 bottle of Henri Boillot white Burgundy?"
Read the whole thing. (posted 2/9/21, permalink)
