Biden In Poland

President Biden, fresh from his triumphant visit to Ukraine, met with leaders of NATO members along the alliance's eastern flank in Poland where he re-affirmed the organization's commitment to helping the Ukrainians stave off and repel the Russian juggernaut for the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He gave a positive speech about freedom and national sovereignty standing tall in Ukraine and elsewhere in contrast to the stark, pessimistic speech he gave in Poland over a year before.  And the Polish audience loved it, cheering almost every one of Biden's paragraphs. 

Republicans continue to complain about how Biden has not visited the train crash site in Ohio and still won't go to the border.  And I have to admit, with criticism like that, things do look bad for . . . Republicans.  After the great press and campaign-ready photographic opportunities Biden just got, how do the Republicans respond?

By sharing a story on Fox News about Biden falling up the stairs while trying to board Air Force One.

You're going to have to do better than that, guys. 

Biden Abroad

President Biden has done a great deal to repair the damage with the United States' European allies.  He's doubled down on the U.S. commitment to fight climate change, pushed for more COVID vaccines to be delivered to the developing world, and reaffirmed solid trade practices with the European Union.  He's put the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in a better position to deal with exterior threats such as Russian military power and cyber-warfare.

Biden has at least made his case to the Group of Seven and to NATO for confronting China and withdrawing from Afghanistan, though both issues could cause more difficulty for him.  But there's another problem; the Europeans don't trust America.  They saw what happened on January 6 and they see what goes on in Washington now - a band of right-wing extremists that would even scare the French National Front could return Donald Trump or send a Rick Scott or  a Ron DeSantis to the White House in 2024 and every last bit of progress made by the Biden administration could unravel in an instant.  And the Republicans are already working with the electoral process to make sure that happens!  Unless, of course, Biden can handle as many domestic affairs as adroitly as foreign affairs.        

And tot be fair, the other members o the Group of Seven are more our allies than our friends because, let's face it, they have issues with us.  The British think we're rude, the French think we're uncultured, the Italians think we're puritanical hypocrites, the Germans and the Japanese still think we haven't forgiven them for World War II, and the Canadians . . . well, the Canadians treat us like the next-door neighbors on a court-style cul-de-sac-side street with only two houses on it.  They tolerate us because they have to.

Biden is working to show we're not all that bad, and he hopes to make that point all the more clear in his summit meeting today with Vladimir Putin - a topic I don't discuss much in this space because it makes my head hurt - and if Biden can come away with a sense of accomplishment by laying down the law with Putin over their differences,  he'll be halfway to his goal.  Wish him luck.

Pompeo and Circumstance

Donald Trump famously called Hillary Clinton our worst Secretary of State ever without ever explaining why.  This was before Trump became President, and if I had to tell you who the worst Secretary of State was before 2017, it would be a guess.  But Mike Pompeo has made the choice for worst Secretary of State ever clear.  He is, and by a wide margin.

Some people will nominate Pompeo's immediate predecessor, Rex Tillerson, as our worst Secretary of State ever, largely because Tillerson had no practical diplomatic experience upon entering the office and proved to be inept at managing the State Department.  But Uncle Rex - who had some diplomatic skills by virtue of being a CEO of a multinational company - was a well-meaning man who, due to his lack of government experience, didn't know what he was doing.  As a former congressman and CIA director, Mike Pompeo knew exactly what he was doing as Secretary of State, and hardly with good intentions.  He isolated the U.S. from the European Union, screwed up the country's response to COVID on the international level, insulted our allies when it came to handling China, and fumbled the ball on relations with North Korea (after Trump first fumbled it himself). This past week, Pompeo, among other things, labeled the Houthis in Yemen as terrorists - despite insistences from humanitarian organizations that banishing the Houthis will lead to more starving in the Yemeni civil war - and also labeled Cuba a terrorist-supporting state, which makes it difficult or the incoming Biden administration to restart relations with the island nation . . .apparently they have to go through Congress to undo Pompeo's designation.  (Republicans have long dismissed Cuba as a pariah, and their attitude has only made a pariah out of the United States.)  Pompeo even declared Iran to be harboring al-Qaeda, even though Iran is governed by a Shi'a theocracy and al-Qaeda is rooted in Sunni Islam.

Pompeo did none of this out of principle but rather out of ideology and political ambition.  Pompeo wants to run for President in 2024.  Even if Biden can reverse Pompeo's last-minute foreign-policy moves, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate - like Pompeo - can use it against him and declare him to be "soft" on terrorism or whatever.  Biden can explain his reversals of policy, but detailed, nuanced explanations satisfy no one in American politics.   

And if Pompeo can find a way to bar the U.S. under Biden from rejoining the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization between now and Wednesday, he'll do that too.

Trump may be going, but Trumpism isn't.  His supporters will remain a dominant force even if Trump's Senate impeachment trial ends with a conviction and a disqualification against him from ever seeking office again.  Pompeo is clearly one of Trump's most devoted disciples.  The idea of a President Pompeo should be enough to make your stomach do more backflips than Simone Biles, and it's already had the same effect on me.  

Should you be afraid of Pompeo?  Very afraid.

Kerry On?

John Kerry is thinking of running for President again in 2020.

Don't laugh - and don't send the former Secretary of State a Harold Stassen bumper sticker as a joke.  I started to laugh, until I realized that it actually made sense.  Kerry isn't a man who would consider such a decision lightly.  He's a serious man, and God knows he wouldn't do anything without careful consideration.  He's been considering a run because of Donald Trump's completely disastrous foreign policy, from his withdrawal from trade agreements, a climate change agreement, and several other agreements to his thorough trashing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.  In fact, Kerry intimated as much to an interviewer for an Israeli newspaper who has close ties to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.  He also relayed to Abbas through this interviewer that the Palestinians should advance a pro-active peace plan and "hold on and be strong" against Trump's desire to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as the Israeli capital, something Trump insists will bring peace (do I have to bring up the curious case of Danzig again?).

But Kerry for President? Another geezer?  Yes, but a geezer who is smart and energetic, and someone who might have defeated George Walker Bush's bid for a second presidential term if not for the Iraq War and the mood in the country to stick with someone who vowed to see the war through after having instigated it.  (Ironically, Kerry voted to give Bush the authorization to go to war, based on what he thought was true about Saddam Hussein's arsenal, but as Michael Moore later said, Kerry didn't vote to start a war; he voted for Bush to use his judgment in dealing with Iraq.  Kerry's biggest mistake?  Thinking Bush was a man of sound judgment.)   

Here's the thing.  John Kerry is a man of integrity and a man of duty.  He served his country in Vietnam, he's been a U.S. Senator, and he values service above all.  And while he didn't quite win the Presidency in 2004, he now at least knows how not to run a presidential campaign.  He wanted to answer the "swift boat" charges against his Navy service as a river patrolman in Vietnam, but his aides advised him against it; this time, he's ready to fight back hard against that noted draft-dodging carnival baker Trump if #45 tries Swift Boat Mark Two against Kerry in a general election match-up.  Kerry's not going to talk too much, and he's not going to let his wife say anything.  He's also going to explain his Senate votes more clearly, and he sure ain't gonna be caught windsurfing! 

Also, Kerry represents the best of an underrated generation.  He belongs to the Silent Generation, the Americans born between 1928 and 1945, the generation between the World War II generation and the Baby Boomers - the Americans too old to have been at Woodstock and too young to have been at Guadalcanal.  Kerry's generation has never produced a President - it's only produced unsuccessful presidential candidates, including Walter Mondale, John McCain and Kerry's old boss Michael Dukakis (Kerry served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts under Governor Dukakis before Bay Staters elected him to the first of five U.S. Senate terms in 1984) - but it's long overdue to put one of its own in the White House.  It may the best, most productive generation this country has produced, apart from the World War II generation.  The Silent Generation - or the "Depression babies," as they're sometimes called - was the generation of Americans that took part in the Freedom Rides, fought the Korean War to make eastern Asia safe for democracy, campaigned for John F. Kennedy, voted for John F. Kennedy, joined the Peace Corps, gave the world James Dean, invented rock and roll, and sired and raised the free and independent thinkers who became Generation X.  Baby Boomers may idolize Martin Luther King, Jr., but the Silents marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., one of their peers.  Baby Boomers may take to heart the lyrics of Bob Dylan, but the Silents gave us Bob Dylan.

It is from this group of Americans that only someone like John Kerry could emerge - a man who, as freelance writer David Klion wrote on Twitter, is of a "rich northeastern liberal noblesse oblige, saw combat when he didn’t have to, believes in high ideals," and is "way more admirable than most politicians his age."

Politicians his age - or close to it, at least -  include Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.  Both are in fact slightly older than Kerry - two years and one year, respectively - and yet both are taken seriously as presidential contenders.  And as Ed Kilgore noted in New York magazine, Kerry "came within an eyelash of defeating an incumbent President who was (at the time) a lot more popular than Donald Trump is likely to be in 2020."

Kerry still has his drawbacks.  He left a lot of campaign money unspent in the 2004 election, angering Democrats who thought that money could have made the difference between victory and defeat in a close race.  His defeat made the Supreme Court appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito possible, and for that many Democrats can never forgive him.  Democrats in 2004 never really voted for Kerry as much as they voted against Bush. He also chose John Edwards as his running mate, suggesting an inability to accurately judge another person's character. But he has his strengths.  He's since served as Secretary of State.  As Secretary of State, he helped negotiate the now-imperiled Iran deal.  He doesn't owe allegiance to either the centrists or the progressives.  At a time when there are still hard feelings between the two wings, that can be an asset.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still for Martin O'Malley.  But I wouldn't dismiss Kerry, who will be 77 in January 2021, out of hand.  Incidentally, he would not only be the oldest man elected President if he won, but he'd be the first failed Democratic presidential nominee to get another shot at the White House since Adlai Stevenson in 1956.  To respond to the inevitable point that Stevenson still lost, I would argue that Stevenson didn't have the luck of having as an opponent a man like Donald Trump.

Stevenson lost a rematch with President Eisenhower . . . a man who was in some ways like Kerry.