John Kerry’s First post election interview
This past Sunday, John Kerry appeared on Meet the Press to talk about Iraq, the election, and his plans going forward.
For the first 20 minutes of the interview, the change in the man was striking. He was giving straight answers to questions. He was not long winded, he was clear, and he had a point. He was not afraid to disagree with his patron saint, Ted Kennedy. He had tough, straight to the point comments for the President concerning Iraq. He made a lot of sense when speaking about Social Security. He spoke quite candidly about why he thought he had a lot to be proud of, in the way he ran his campaign.
In other words, he was downright presidential.
And then, Russert started to ask tough questions about specific items which had haunted Kerry in the campaign. Specifically, about being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968 (a memory that has been recounted many times as having been â??searedâ? into Mr. Kerry’s memory) and about the fact that a member of his platoon says that they weren’t in Cambodia.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde could not have performed a more complete transformation. Mr. Kerry was almost immediately defensive, claimed that â??Well, maybe we were on the borderâ?, and just generally started to make very little sense.
Within the next 5 minutes, he claimed that his servicemate didn’t know where they were, as it was â??not his jobâ?, Osama bin Laden cost him the presidential election, and at times just simply did not answer the question he was asked by Russert.
Where just 10 minutes before I had been thinking, â??Wow, maybe America should have voted for this guy…â? I was suddenly reminded (in amongst the whining, indecisiveness, and general waffling) why I am sincerely glad we didn’t.