John Kerry had a good week

Not only did Sec. of State John Kerry out-maneuver Darrell Issa (see "Issa backs down"), he also took on the former VEEP's criticism of President Obama's foreign policy.

VEEP said Obama's decision to pull almost all our troops out of Afghanistan was "stupid" and "unwise," and he called Obama "the weakest president I've seen in my lifetime."

Here's Kerry:

“I’m not surprised to hear from Dick Cheney something that’s obviously, number one, negative, and number two, wrong,   Dick Cheney was completely wrong about Iraq, and we are still struggling with the aftermath of what Dick Cheney and his crew thought was the right policy to go in and start a war of choice for the wrong reasons. . . . 

“They turned topsy-turvy the entire region with respect to Sunni and Shia and the relationships there. . . .  So the fact is that they have been deeply, deeply wrong in the policy that they pursued, and any advice from him really has no meaning to me with respect to what we’re doing today.”

In his West Point commencement speech, President Obama focused on foreign policy;  and he addressed that Cheney attitude:

"But to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution. Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures – without thinking through the consequences; without building international support and legitimacy for our action, or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required. Tough talk draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans. As General Eisenhower, someone with hard-earned knowledge on this subject, said at this ceremony in 1947: “War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. . . .


"But U.S. military action cannot be the only – or even primary – component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. And because the costs associated with military action are so high, you should expect every civilian leader – and especially your Commander-in-Chief – to be clear about how that awesome power should be used."

As one of the commentators in MSNBC noted on Thursday night, after showing clips of Cheney's remarks, Cheney is doing a preemptive strike, trying to obscure the glaring truth of the failure of his own folly in Iraq.

Ralph