Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hobbled out of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, Mr. Obama found the perfect replacement in John Kerry, who believes that one cannot be both a patriotic Israeli Jew and a democrat; the reader will please note the lower case “d” in democrat. Mr. Kerry would not wish to suggest that individual Jews cannot be Democrats, because that would cost the Democratic Party of which he is a member both patronage and votes. Saying just the right thing at just the right moment is not Mr. Kerry’s strong suit, nor for that matter is diplomacy, effective in foreign policy only when it is attached to strength and honor. In this, Mr. Kerry is a chip off his chief’s block. Having failed diplomatically in Iraq, Mr. Obama withdrew American troops from the country, creating a vacuum that eventually was filled by what Mr. Obama called “a JV team.” That would be ISIS, which now has a presence in multiple countries in the Middle East and the North African...

Where to begin? Question: Mr. Blumenthal, who do you regard as being more corrupt, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or present Secretary of State John Kerry? Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is valiantly attempting to power through yet another stone wall, this one involving the Clinton Foundation. A short while back it was disclosed that Mrs. Clinton’s cover-up accomplices used BleachBit to permanently erase  from emails she had sent over a private, poorly secured server data that contained, according to FBI Director James Comey, top secret restricted information. The Clinton Foundation has now come under scrutiny. But Mrs. Clinton is not a lone player in the power game of using public office to advance the prospects of herself, her family or friends. John Kerry, a longtime U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and the present Secretary of State, appears to be following in his predecessor’s footsteps.

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal announced he would vote in favor of the Obama/Kerry/Khamenei deal on the very day President Barack Obama had acquired enough votes in Congress to assure that any veto override would not occur. Mr. Blumenthal has issued a manifesto supporting his decision, a convoluted thousand word media release that quickly collapses from its own internal stresses. Mr. Blumenthal supports the deal because he prefers diplomacy to war – even, it would appear a diplomacy that enriches Iran and winks at the likely nuclearization of the Middle East.

Never has a president waved the white flag so gaily.  The sanctions on Iran were a success, which is why, come to think of it, Iran has so importunately insisted on their removal. Removing the sanctions for so little in return is an abject failure. One day after the Obama-Iran deal was inked, Obama faced the cameras and said the alternative to his agreement would have been war rather than, say, tougher sanctions. That is a false alternative. But then this administration has been for several years on good terms with falsity. The operative assumption of the Obama administration seems to be that you really CAN fool most of the people all the time. The only thing more disgraceful than the Obama-Iran agreement – which surrenders any real possibility of preventing the distribution of nuclear weapons throughout the Middle East – is “Winter Soldier” John Kerry, the second worst Secretary of State in recent times.

Only a few days after ABC News celebrity George Stephanopoulos got himself stuck in the ubiquitous Clinton goo, apparently an occupational hazard for friends of Bill and Hillary, Sidney Blumenthal – not to be confused with U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, also a dear friend of the Clintons – found himself stretched on the journalistic rack. Mr. Blumenthal was first outed by a hacker known as “Guccifer,” who posted on-line four memos Mr. Blumenthal had written to Mrs. Clinton, the probable Democratic nominee for president. The e-mails were hacked from Mrs. Clintons’s private, unauthorized server. “Guccifer” apparently has done what all the Republican horses and all the Republican men thus far have been incapable of doing – prying from Mrs. Clinton’s clenched fist some e-mails touching on Benghazi she thought to keep private by operating from a private, and possibly illegal, server.

It’s been a rough few weeks in the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come and gone, leaving behind in his wake a stream of petulant objections: Should he or should he not have been invited by partisan Republicans to address the US Congress concerning Iran’s machinations in the Middle East? Democrats in the Congress, we are to understand, are never partisan. One wonders, what is the point in having a party if its members are not permitted to be partisan? Appearing on Morning Joe shortly after Mr. Netanyahu’s address, US Senator Dick Blumenthal allowed that although the invitation itself was inappropriate, he never-the-less had decided not to boycott Mr. Netanyahu, because Israel and the United States traditionally have been allies. This was a grown-up view of interpersonal relations. Why should a longstanding relationship between two countries fall victim to personal pique? Mr. Blumenthal noted that there was some disagreement as to whether the White Ho...

The good news is that Secretary of State John Kerry is not Ayaan Hersi Ali , and therefore his address to Yale graduates on College Class Day was not cancelled by a tremulous administration responding to charges that the appointed speaker had needlessly denigrated Islam. Yale, one may be thankful, is not Brandeis University, which first announced plans that it would bestow an honorary degree on Hersi Ali and later cancelled her invitation to speak at the college when students and Muslim organizations became restive. Mr. Kerry, assuredly, is no Hersi Ali. His comments concerning the murderous assault on Christians by Muslim Salafists in the Middle East and Africa are so mild and inoffensive as to be barely noticed at all.     Nor is Mr. Kerry Condoleezza Rice, currently a professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and  the first African American in U.S. history to be appointed Secretary of State. Ms. Rice...

Secretary of State John Kerry has released a statement  on the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Bashir Assad’s Syria: "What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world," said Kerry. "It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable."

In Germany, anti-Vietnam War protestor, longtime Senator from Massachusetts, wind sail surfer, husband of ketchup multi-millionairess Teresa Heinz Kerry and Secretary of State John Kerry “recalled for young Germans Tuesday when he snuck out of the American embassy in divided postwar Berlin at age 12 for a clandestine bicycle ride into the Soviet-controlled eastern part of the city.