John Kerry seems to have been carefully positioning himself during the upheaval in Egypt with an eye for a job he’s wanted for years: secretary of state.
The Massachusetts senator called on Hosni Mubarak to step down while the White House waited, the Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi notes, capitalizing on Hillary Clinton’s looking “unprepared and off-balance” in response to the protests. “For once,” Vennochi writes, Kerry “looks artful, as well as ambitious.” Clinton was tapped to be secretary of state after President Obama won the Democratic primary in 2008 and moved to craft his “team of rivals” government. Kerry had to settle for his current gig, chairman of the Senate armed services committee.
But Kerry hasn’t let it go to waste. He’s delivered important speeches lauded by wonks, his support for an Afghanistan surge helped convince.
Obama to do it, and his committee released a report this week finding that American diplomats in Iraq could find themselves in danger after the U.S. fully withdraws. After decades in the public eye, “it’s about time Kerry finds his voice,” Vennochi writes. “Out of crisis, comes opportunity.”
Not everyone wants Kerry to seize it, however, though the option may look good to liberals.
