Obama’s ‘Congressional Secretary of State,’ Kerry Stokes Talk of Top Diplomat Prize Kerry’s Diplomatic Activities Are Questioned
Since he was elevated to the leading foreign policy position in Congress three years ago, John F. Kerry has been on the road a lot. He has brokered runoff elections in Afghanistan, shuttled between warring factions in Africa, and patiently sat through marathon tea-drinking sessions with recalcitrant Middle East dictators, all to advance the Obama administration’s top foreign policy goals.
In the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Kerry “probably has the closest relationship with the president and the vice president of any chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
“When he takes on the responsibility of being an envoy for this administration, he does it with great skill,” Biden told the Globe.
Yet Kerry’s frenetic pace of travel on behalf of the administration is stoking a lively debate. Some foreign policy specialists question whether the Massachusetts Democrat has his eye on the secretary of state’s job if Obama is reelected and, as a result, has been too lenient on oversight of the administration’s policies, the chairman’s primary role.
The fiercest criticism is directed at his committee’s oversight of the war in Afghanistan and the administration’s use of lethal force, including the expansion of drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere.
“Times of war is when the need for oversight is at its zenith,” said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and former top Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. “That’s where the checks and balances are needed. Kerry is doing the opposite. He seems to be running for secretary of state and has not had serious oversight of the conduct of wars that are more endless than Vietnam.”