Let me finish tonight with this: John Kerry was just confirmed as Secretary of State.
The decision by the Senate left only three members voting “nay.” Who they are tells you a lot—most importantly, how excellent this appointment was for the president.
One is Ted Cruz, the guy who opposes both Kerry for State and Chuck Hagel for Defense. How interesting. Here are two people who’ve fought for their country, been in it, as I like to say of the Vietnam War, who’ve been awarded medals for their service.
Ted Cruz has never served in the military but insists these two gutsy veterans don’t deserve the offices to which the president has appointed them.
Don’t you just love these people? They don’t like the military enough to join it, they dump on people who have served, and then have the brass to call for more wars—in fact a regular flow of wars. Ask the typical hawk what U.S. war, looking back, he thought was a bad idea. Grenada? Going off after Noriega? Putting our Marines into Lebanon? Somalia?
My experience is they like them all. Not only that, but they always, as I said, are ready with another. Iraq? Yes. Afghanistan? Yes. Iraq again? Iran? Let’s go!
Why do people listen to these types? Why the knee-jerk salute every time one of these armchair hawks itches for another conflict?
I’m glad we’ve got Kerry as Secretary of State for the same reason I’m glad there was an Anwar Sadat, a Yitzhak Rabin, and still is a Shimon Peres. I’d glad we had Ike in the 1950s to keep us out of Indo-China and out of the disastrous Suez campaign. I’m glad the hawks aren’t going to be able to stop Chuck Hagel because the people who have seen war, felt it, been in it, been hurt by it in body and heart are the very people I want deciding on when and whether we have another.
Chris Matthews