It is July and normally that means John F. Kerry is normally in his wetsuit showing off his lanky, grey hairy bod for the geriatric hotties on Nantucket. This year however, Senator Kerry is being distracted by a nuisance campaign run by Democratic primary opponent Ed O'Reilly. The winner will take on Jeff Beatty, a Republican retired CIA agent and military man.



So while the surf may be up the favorability ratings aren't and as a result Kerry is suddenly in need of providing the appearance that he actually does that senator stuff. He has been suddenly available for cameras recently and even talked about the idea of actually legislating some home heating bill. The crumbs thrown toward the poor is always good form pre-election for the elite Massachusetts elected Democrats. It satisfies the "useful idiots".

Senator Kerry, who is credited for "making" Barack Obama a national star for the Democrats by allowing him a keynote speech at the 2004 DNC in Boston, has heavily invested in the young 2008 presidential candidate. He has bucked the state Democrats in Massachusetts and endorsed him while most voters went with Hillary Clinton in the Massachusetts primary. Many, make that Many Democrats here are not thrilled with him for that and a myriad of other reasons.

Hey, that's between Kerry and the Democrats here. Back to the subject though, Kerry made the rounds on Tuesday afternoon by giving interviews on the cable news channle circuit. MSNBC and Fox News were the ones I happened to catch and wow did the Jr. senator eat his galoshes on that day. He somehow threw out a racist bomb out of his mouth on MSNBC and then went on to Fox and said the American soldiers, Marines and sailors had nothing to do with the enormous decrease in violence in Iraq. He was defending Barack's inarticulate mumbling about why the surge didn't work. Kerry's explanation is a punch in the snout of every American serviceman and woman who is or was serving in Iraq.

This is an interview that will plague him for months ahead. 

Below is the Fox News transcript:



Jon Scott

12:07:52 the feeling people get is that the surge has been a success, created a framework , but the feelings is that obama doesn’t

John Kerry

12:08:10 i disagree with that i dont think thats accurate at all.  It is what some people would like the situation to be but that is not what it is. look, a whole bunch of folks are spending a lot of time giving credit to the surge for something that basically came from a political decision.  the Sunni in anbar Provence  and in the Sunni triangle made a political decision before the surge troops even got there to work with americans,  and to go after al qaeda the principle reason for the reduction in violence-i am not saying that it hasn’t made a difference, sure it helped to reduce tactically some of the violence but the strategy of the surge was to give iraqi politicians the windows of opportunity to reconcile and resolve the problems. they haven’t done the major reconciliation necessary and he fundamentals of the surge will not make that difference. so the bottom…sorry go ahead

Jon Scott

12:09:11 but the surge was always intended to lay ground work

John Kerry

12:09:16 The surge was intended supposedly to give them breathing room to make decisions of reconciliation. The fact is that the most significant reason for reduction in violence…i mean i met with these sheiks and governor of the Anbar province and others and they told me point blank the importance of there decision to begin what’s called the Sunni awakening. The sons of Iraq  whom we are incidentally paying very are sums of money for this awakening they made a decision to go after al qaida now  has tactically it made it some difference in some places in terms of violence? sure it has. When you take the best troops in the world  american troops and you unleash them as we have, you’re going to be able to reduce violence in some places. But have we seen the oil law passed  have seen the fundamental law with respect to the elections passed? have we seen the reconciliation between Sunni and shea to the degree that we can really  move at a different pace? 12:10:07 in terms of  redeploying our troops to the real center of the war on  terror which is Afghanistan. the answer is no. I think barrack obama is 100% correct. as i think the  majority of congress who have voted to say we ought to have a date because now you have prime minister maliki and president talibani all agreeing it would be good to set a date and good to begin to reduce american presence. that is the policy we have had on the table in the past year.

Jon Scott

12:10:53 i dont want to argue with a us senator but i spent time with guys in the triangle of death and one of the points they made to me was we got in there- created some space and the Sunni and shia got tired of killing each other

Jon Kerry

12:10:55 they did a brilliant job they absolutely did a brilliant job

12:11:28  well you’ll have diff interpretations about where the political decision came from. i will tell you this if you look at the violence charts- that the charts track the violence-the violence actually started down before the surge troops got there. because that was when the fundamental decision was made now i am not…please…understand something. i am not taking anything away from the capacity of our troops who are extraordinary. our troops have done a brilliant job. And yes they have made a difference in different pockets but thats tactics. that is tactical.

Jon Scott

12:11:59 it sounds like your not giving them credit

John Kerry

12:12:05 The strategic interest of the united states is for this political reconciliation to move faster. And the strategic component of this has not met with the level of accomplishment of the troops if you will. And that where i think many people felt at the beginning republicans and democrats alike. i mean secretary jim baker others all felt the surge was the wrong way to go when you needed a political reconsilliation.12:12:15 that will only only come from political decisions  from the will power that was absent. hope fully this breathing spell will yet be acted on by the iraqi’s i still believe barrack obama is a 100% correct as now the prime minister of iraq and the president have said we can set a date and target the reduction of our troops because that is the best way to stand up the iraqis themselves and the best evidence of that incidentally is what happened down in basra where the British did redeploy they withdrew to the airport and when the militia started to act up it was maliki himself deployed troops with out the united states they reacted and i think that has had as much to do with anything. the iraqi willingness to stand up under prim minister makili has as much to do with changing the flavor of what is happening there as is anything else.

Jon Scott

12:13:19 those troops had been trained by the US. Senator we have to say good bye thanks for being with us.

I'm sorry Senator Kerry but the surge worked despite your promise in February 2007 that it wouldn't:

 "The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn't the answer--in fact, it's a tragic mistake. It won't end the violence; it won't provide security;  .  .  .  it won't turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won't deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won't rein in the militias."


Despite Barack Obama's prognosis that the surge would fail, it hasn't failed. Barack Obama January 23, 2007:
 
"I don't think the president's strategy is going to work. We went through two weeks of hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; experts from across the spectrum--military and civilian, conservative and liberal--expressed great skepticism about it. My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we're going to change the dynamic in Iraq and start seeing political commendation is actually if we create a system of phased redeployment. And, frankly, the president, I think, has not been willing to consider that option, not because it's not militarily sound but because he continues to cling to the belief that somehow military solutions are going to lead to victory in Iraq."




Things are so good in Iraq that the liberal media doesn't talk about it any longer. If it bleeds it leads and Iraq hasn't led the news hour in almost a year......which is when the surge took place Live Shot. Success has begun predominantly due to the Bush hand picked team which engaged in American diplomacy thus crafting an evolved Sunni cooperation, massive US military presense which allowed for more aggressive missions and the Iraqi fledgling army trained by the US and not due to any pre-surge bullshit story concocted to justify an erroneous opposition vote.