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Kerry fiddles while Egypt burns
Author: TriSec    Date: 07/06/2013 13:24:02

Morning, comrades.

I'm sure your favorite local right-wing outrage generator has had this story on heavy rotation for the last 24 hours now. Our secretary of state rather quietly spend a few hours on his boat over the long Fourth of July weekend.


WASHINGTON _ Secretary of State John F. Kerry is in the headlines over the Fourth of July holiday for a decidedly unwelcome reason: questions over whether he went sailing off Nantucket as Egypt descended into chaos.

Turns out he did, at least for a little while -- despite his spokeswoman’s initial insistence to the contrary.

The spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, on Wednesday denied a CBS News report on Twitter that Kerry had been seen boarding his yacht, Isabel, for a sail off Nantucket just hours after Egypt’s first democratically elected leader was overthrown.

“Any report or tweet that he was on a boat is completely inaccurate,” she said, clearly trying to quell any impression that the nation’s top diplomat was not on the job.

But the State Department reversed course Friday when Psaki issued a statement correcting the record on Kerry’s whereabouts off Nantucket.

“While he was briefly on his boat on Wednesday, Secretary Kerry worked around the clock all day including participating in the president’s meeting with his national security council,” she said.

A Kerry aide who was not authorized to speak publicly said the denial on Wednesday was the result of “confusion,” saying Kerry had apparently taken his grandson out for an hour-long sail.

Kerry’s aides bristled at the suggestion that he is simply lounging around, saying he has been working the phones while on vacation with world leaders and participating in White House meetings about the situation in Egypt and a series of other pressing foreign policy challenges.

Still, the State Department’s initial misstatement about the matter was a self-inflicted wound that was picked up by many media outlets and reverberated across the Internet.

In her statement, Psaki on Friday cited phone calls Kerry had conducted from Nantucket with multiple foreign leaders and diplomats in Egypt, Israel, Norway, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

It was not the first time that Kerry became an easy target for detractors who suggest he is out of touch, including when he was pictured wind surfing during the height of his failed 2004 presidential campaign.


I say "so what?". While there may be Americans in Egypt on any given day, nobody was directly threatened by the protesters...the military, despite it being a coup, did things rather low-key, and perhaps most important of all, nobody flew a couple of jetliners into skyscrapers while he wasn't paying attention.

I just crossed Nantucket Sound myself last weekend....while I didn't have any bars out in the channel on my phone, you can rest assured that Mr. Kerry wasn't sailing alone, and if anything truly bad happened, there was instant satellite communication available.

What did the right expect our former Senator to do....land on the shores of Alexandria and lead a citizen's march on the Pyramids, or something?
 

9 comments (Latest Comment: 07/06/2013 23:09:18 by TriSec)
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Comment by Raine on 07/06/2013 14:23:20
To answer this queestion:
What did the right expect our former Senator to do....land on the shores of Alexandria and lead a citizen's march on the Pyramids, or something?


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Yes


Comment by Will in Chicago on 07/06/2013 16:56:10
Quote by Raine:
To answer this queestion:
What did the right expect our former Senator to do....land on the shores of Alexandria and lead a citizen's march on the Pyramids, or something?


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Yes



Apparently, the right wing acts as if Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama have access to this team to solve our world's problems:

http://assets2.ignimgs.com/2011/03/29/justice-league-of-america-20110329015318555-3421843_640w.jpg


Comment by clintster on 07/06/2013 19:12:51
Just seeing this... Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in San Francisco. Developing...

Comment by Raine on 07/06/2013 19:31:48
Quote by clintster:
Just seeing this... Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in San Francisco. Developing...
Watching CNN -- that plane is burning out.
There are reports (unconfirmed) that it flipped.


Comment by Raine on 07/06/2013 19:35:57
I'm not gonna believe that plane flipped. tail is off but wings are attached.

Comment by clintster on 07/06/2013 19:48:43
Quote by Raine:
I'm not gonna believe that plane flipped. tail is off but wings are attached.


I saw a photo from a passenger showing people disembarking from the plane, and the fuselage still looked intact. I'm guessing mechanical failure on the tail.

Tri?

Comment by Raine on 07/06/2013 19:56:15
Quote by clintster:
Quote by Raine:
I'm not gonna believe that plane flipped. tail is off but wings are attached.


I saw a photo from a passenger showing people disembarking from the plane, and the fuselage still looked intact. I'm guessing mechanical failure on the tail.

Tri?
Everything except the tail looked intact. MSNBC was showing footage of smoke from the upper front. CNN had footage from the other side of the plane (where the smoke was) it looked like they were letting the plane burn out. both stations made clear that emergency slides were down and people were getting off the plane.

I left Tri a message on the Bof.

I truly hope that casualties are none zero.


Comment by BobR on 07/06/2013 20:57:35
Apparently the pilot came in with the nose high and overall too low, and the tail clipped the end of the runway. That caused it fish-tail and finally spin out.

Comment by TriSec on 07/06/2013 23:09:18
Late to the party - we've been out and about most of the day, just heard about this within the hour.

From an eyewitness report, it sounds like what is called a "High-alpha" approach with a resulting tailstrike and main gear overstress.

Meaning the pilot came in nose-high and hit tail first, the resulting forces slamming the plane down on the mains, which in turn collapsed. It looks bad, yes....but that's generally a survivable event.

What will be at issue is why was it a high-alpha approach? Maybe something was going on with the autolander, or the takeoff-go around switch was inadvertantely hit. There was a similar incident perhaps 20 years back, also with an Asian airline where the Australian pilot inadvertantly activated the go-round switch, then fought the auto-pilot to a crash.)