SoS John “Kick Me” Kerry Unburdens Himself on Gun Crazed Americans Scaring the Poor Furriners
There have been some embarrassing Secretaries of State. Warren Christopher comes to mind. But I am hard pressed to name one more embarrassing than John Kerry. They say he looks French, and damned if he isn’t trying to act the part, with his current World Wide Surrender Tour and all. He has basically begged the NoKos and the Iranians to play nice, despite threats of launching thermonuclear war, and he and Obama make me cringe with their attempts to pacify Putin over the Magnitsky List. John “Kick Me” Kerry seems an apt sobriquet.
But he totally topped himself when he blamed dropping numbers of Japanese students in the US on . . . guns. No. Seriously:
Students in other countries assessing where to study abroad are increasingly scared of coming to the United States because of gun violence, the nation’s top diplomat said Monday.
Speaking with CNN foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty in Tokyo, Secretary of State John Kerry said he’d discussed the situation with officials there who said students felt unsafe in the United States.
“We had an interesting discussion about why fewer students are coming to, particularly from Japan, to study in the United States, and one of the responses I got from our officials from conversations with parents here is that they’re actually scared. They think they’re not safe in the United States and so they don’t come,” Kerry said.
So the statement about “other countries” is based on one: Japan. And that is based on “responses I got from our officials from conversations with parents” rather than actual, you know, data.
But note: fewer Japanese are studying abroad overall. The drop is not confined to the US. Because, well, there are fewer college-aged Japanese. Go to Japan-it’s an old, old society. And because the Japanese economy stinks.
And believe me, the US is crawling with foreign students from just about everywhere in the world. What, they don’t care about guns?
To pile on: to explain a change in something (e.g., a decline in Japanese students in the US) you need to cite to a change in something else. Are guns something new in the US? Hardly? Has there been a rise in gun crime? No: the change in gun crime has been downwards, meaning that under Kerry’s guns-foreign student theory, enrollments should be up.
Actually, the reasons behind this particular idiocy are painfully transparent. The Obama administration, for some reason known only to itself, has decided to make guns its second term signature issue. To the extent that they explain the decision to send no high level representative (e.g., Biden, Michelle) to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral as being driven by the fact that this is a crucial period in domestic politics, due to the impending votes on gun control in the Senate. No, they actually said that: it’s probably a contributing factor, but Obama’s churlishness about giving props to a conservative titan is probably the real reason. Little people do little things. And Obama hasn’t the stature to see over the soles of Thatcher’s pumps.
I can see the wheels spinning in the little minds at State: “We have to support the President’s anti-gun efforts. How? How? How? I got it! Some Japanese mother told some flunky at the embassy that she was afraid of all those scary guns in the US. Let’s go with that!” Foreign policy conscripted into the service of a small-ball domestic agenda.
Should I mention that by making a big deal of people “running around with guns” Kerry is validating that ignorant fear? Yes. I think I should.
By making a big deal of people “running around with guns” Kerry is validating that ignorant fear.
But it’s all in the service of a cause: advancing Obama’s anti-gun agenda. Talk about diminishing the prestige of the office of Secretary of State, by enlisting it in the service of a floundering domestic political agenda.
To which I say: What about pressure cookers?
It might be a good idea if George W. Bush went to Thatcher’s funeral on his own. A presense of a former President of the United States should be a fitting tribute to a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, regardless of who is the official representative of the US there.
Comment by LL — April 16, 2013 @ 8:56 pm
To be fair, the relevant factor here is the rise in mass shootings, which are widely covered in international media (e.g., Columbine, Newtown, Virginia Tech).
Comment by ששש — April 17, 2013 @ 1:05 am
> He has basically begged the NoKos and the Iranians to play nice, despite threats of launching thermonuclear war
So, you take North Korea’s threat to nuke Los Angeles seriously? How do you think they will deliver the bomb? Inside a frozen Swanson Dinners dog galbi dish?
Comment by Vlad Rutenburg — April 17, 2013 @ 3:17 am
Well Vlad, guess you missed the bit about the recovered nose section of the NK missile.
Seems it is designed to deliver a warhead.
Seems you are poorly informed, or blinkered as usual.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/15/exclusive-u-s-recovered-north-korean-rocket-head.html
Comment by Andrew — April 17, 2013 @ 4:13 am
Vlad: who cares? An official representative of a country makes a statement which no one can reliably verify. A simple prudency requires approaching this as it was at face value – until proven otherwise.
Comment by LL — April 17, 2013 @ 4:15 am
I have deep fears of ninja stars and decrepit nuclear power plants.
Comment by pahoben — April 17, 2013 @ 10:42 am
@LL,
What we are witnessing here is the fleecing of the average citizens of both countries, just as we saw between USSR and US and between US and Putin. Kim makes the North Koreans submissive by scaring them with the US-the-enemy, and the US military-industrial lobby and the politicians in their employ fleece the US taxpayers:
http://vladrutenburg.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/the-military-industrial-congressional-complex/
The military–industrial–congressional complex
http://vladrutenburg.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/putin-the-protege-of-the-american-right/
Putin – protege of the American right
Comment by Vlad Rutenburg — April 18, 2013 @ 8:50 pm
Ah Vlad, how is that tin-foil hat of yours fitting?
Comment by Andrew — April 19, 2013 @ 1:11 am
Tin foil on whom? On President Eisenhower (from whom I took the idea)?
It always amazes me how many Americans don’t understand the role that lobbies play in US politics.
Comment by Vlad Rutenburg — April 19, 2013 @ 4:09 pm