Kerry has given a large number of interviews and speeches in the last week or so.

[karynnj]

All are to some degrees reflections on his long career. One yesterday, in Cambridge MA, after his speech at MIT on climate change, he had an interview with a local station that he must have greatly enjoyed.

After all, how many people are asked a question that honors the interviewee's character more than this one:

QUESTION: So I was thinking back to many decades ago, your testimony on Capitol Hill about Vietnam, that – the testimony that really put you on the national stage. You were driven by conscience to say what you said then. And I wonder – and that’s been sort of a major part of your career in political service since then. Am I hearing correctly that your conscience is demanding you to – you made the speech about the Middle East a couple weeks ago, you’re speaking about climate change today. I mean, as you’re looking at the last couple of weeks of your tenure as Secretary of State, is there something more than just policy driving you to speak this way now?

SECRETARY KERRY: I came into public life during the 1960s when a whole bunch of us believed in our ability to change the world. And we did a lot of things. I was part of the environment movement, part of the women’s movement. We had the Equal Rights Amendment. We helped set the country on a course to change its relationship with 50 percent of our country, with women. I was part of the peace effort to try to end the war in Vietnam, to put us on a different track. As a public person, I’ve always tried to reflect what is embodied in our defining ideals as a nation about equality and fairness and justice and so forth.

https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/01/266744.htm

I am so happy to see a reporter note that enduring pattern in how Kerry has acted over a very long public career.

Here is a link to transcripts of his recent speeches and interviews: https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/index.htm

[MBS]

1. That answer summarizes to a T the essence of Sec. Kerry

and why I so admire him. He's been, hands-down, by far the best Secretary of State in my lifetime.
Creative, committed, and honorable diplomat, forward-looking, pushing the world to see the connection between international security and environmental issues. Not to mention (as the interview reminded us) that he has been pushing these issues for his entire career.

[karynnj]

2. Everything you said - had he done only the Iran deal and the Paris Climate Accord, that would have

been true. On environmental issues alone you could say he was the best Secretary of State. I hope that his international conferences on the Oceans will continue with other countries taking the lead. (In fact, the silliest comment I have read in many summaries is when after they do credit him those deals, they say he had no signature issue .... they completely miss that he is the ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMPION Secretary of State -- and has many accomplishments that barely make the news on that.)

I actually got tears in my eyes when I read the question. It had to be sweet to have said have more than 40 years in the public eye. The only thing better than that is that he deserves that testimony to his character.

[ginnyinWI]

3. I just watched his Charlie Rose interview.

Makes me wonder what's going to become of the Middle East after he's not at the State Dept. anymore! He's been the Sec-State Energizer Bunny all of these last years. I hope the new administration doesn't tear it all down.

[karynnj]

4. It is interesting to contemplate ... especially as the incoming administration has not even tried

to review where the State Department sees things going.

I was going to write that I hope that they won't get credit for cleaning up things where it will be ignored that many things are on a path to be cleaned up. That seems the case with the Anti ISIS coalition, where the Iraqis predict that Mosul will be reclaimed within 3 or so months -- meaning that ISIS will be almost entirely out of Iraq. The efforts of the coalition to help areas won back recover through demining and restoring governance are designed to be a more robust stable "peace" than existed when the US left Iraq. The best thing would be if the coalition continues to press Iraq to insure that the Sunni population has some power and some voice. That would leave ISIS only in Syria, where it has been complicated by the civil war. I hope they are pushed to Geneva and that they can find a solution.

But, after starting to write from that perspective, I realized that the important thing is that these things do happen. I also think that - even if Trump or Putin claims credit - the important think for both Obama and Kerry will be that the fighting has ceased or at least been greatly diminished ... and that was what they were fighting and working hard for.

I suspect that just as Obama could not quickly change what the Bush administration was doing, the Trump administration will likely not change anything quickly either. The ISIS effort is led by the military and it is not clear if Mattis gets in that he would order any major change.