The shadow Secretary of State: John Kerry

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/shadow-secretary-state-john-kerry-150818048.html

Sen. John Kerry's role as the Obama White House's discreet diplomatic fixer is examined in detail in a lengthy profile by James Traub in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Its depiction further bolsters Kerry's standing as the U.S. Secretary of State-in-waiting, poised for when Hillary Clinton decides to retire:

Kerry was on friendly terms with practically everyone who runs the world. He was also a peer, and in some cases a confidant, of the members of Obama's national security team. [...]

The combination of his new job and his relationships made Kerry a perfect ex-officio ambassador for a White House soon engulfed by a series of foreign-policy crises. "From the outset," [National Security Advisor Tom] Donilon says, "he made clear and we welcomed that he would be available to work a number of issues, which he has done with great intensity and effectiveness." [...]

But Kerry's conviction in the strategic opportunities possible from diplomatic engagement has been tested in the Middle East, Traub contends:

Obama, like Kerry, viewed Syria as an important example of the new policy of engagement. Kerry visited Syria four times, in 2009 and 2010. [...] Geopolitical thinkers going back to Henry Kissinger have had visions of Syria as the linchpin of a transformed Middle East. Kerry shared this hope, and he tried to persuade Assad to make sufficient concessions for Israel to agree to restart indirect talks that had faltered in late 2008. [...]

Kerry says that he did, indeed, succeed in moving Assad further than he had before. Perhaps he did, but Syria is a kind of shimmering mirage that beckons to, and then disappoints, ambitious strategists. What's more, Kerry's diplomatic craftsmanship may have blinded him to the upheaval that would topple some of the dictators he had long cultivated and discredit others. In this case, that is, "engagement" may have been the status quo policy, not the breakthrough one.

As to his own ambitions for the the Secretary of State job, Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Traub he'd consider it, but is genuinely content with his current considerable role:

"I feel," Kerry said, "as much energy and a sort of quiet — that's a good word, a calm and confidence — about what I'm doing and how I'm approaching things as I ever have. I like where I am."

I don't like you, yahoo news blog.

[derspiess]

I had heard of this before.  Still not sure how much is fact and how much is rumor.

[Ed Anger]

I don't like Longface and his eggplant wife.

[Martinus]

I dont think "shadow" means what you think it means.

[garbon]

I dont think "shadow" means what you think it means.

I don't blog for yahoo.

[The Brain]

Kerry looks like a retard.

[derspiess]

I dont think "shadow" means what you think it means.

We do shadows differently here   

[Neil]

I dont think "shadow" means what you think it means.

There's no shadow cabinet in the US, so I don't think you're using it correctly.