Senator Kerry Meets With Unnamed Foreign Leaders

by Robert J. Romano

March 16th, 2004

In the most damaging gaffe of his political career, Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) recently proclaimed at a fundraiser in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: "I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy'." Senator Kerry apparently believes that in his run for the Presidency, the opinions of unnamed foreign leaders should influence the American people's decision at the polls this year, because his policies, similarly unarticulated, would be more popular with those leaders.  Adding to the controversy, Senator Kerry has refused to name names.  Now, here we have a serious candidate for the office of the President of the United States, who [Update (8/12/04): if elected come January, 2005,] will have swear to faithfully execute the office, and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the federal Constitution of the United States, but the names of foreign leaders who he meets with are not any of our business, but how those leaders feel about U.S. policies at present are.  This is most damaging to Senator Kerry because it fully displays his globalist agenda, and demonstrates how he would formulate policy, not based on the will of the people of his own country, but based on the relative popularity such decisions would have with foreign governments.  According to Senator Kerry, when foreign leaders demand a new policy, apparently he will be ready at the helm to deliver, according to their wishes.  His apparent willingness to defer decisions to foreign leaders should not surprise us, though, since they confirm other statements he has made.
       In a recent address to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Senator Kerry stated that soon after taking office, he would "go to the United Nations and travel to our traditional allies to affirm that the United States has rejoined the community of nations." Senator Kerry has nothing to be ashamed of, since he is already fulfilling this campaign pledge by meeting with foreign leaders, and finding out what they think, so what would be so wrong about identifying the sources of these sentiments? Every day at the White House press briefing, reporters are updated on the President's movements, and his meetings with foreign leaders.  While private conversations are not necessarily made public, as Senator Kerry has done, who the President meets with is made public.  By disclosing who the President meets with in person, and has conversations with in the international community, the American people are given important information that allows us to hold the President accountable.  Is Senator Kerry accountable to the people, by refusing to confirm which foreign leaders he was meeting with? He had no problem telling us what they said, so he should similarly have no problem telling us who they were.  Consulting with friends and allies throughout the world is one of the important responsibilities that the President carries out, and doing so in an accountable way is fundamental to there being legitimacy in the diplomacy we conduct.
       Imagine this headline: "President Bush Has Secret Meetings with Unnamed Foreign Leaders" ... Kind of disturbing, no? We the people want to know the foreign leaders that any President is meeting with, and we want to know the foreign leaders that presidential candidates are meeting with.  For instance, if a hypothetical President was to meet with leaders of terrorist organizations, or terrorist-sponsoring states, to strike a deal that would undermine our nation's security, and could get away with such a fiasco by keeping those meetings secret, the American people would not view it too kindly if and when such events became public.  Of course, this is not to insinuate that Senator Kerry, or any public official for that matter, was meeting with enemies of America.  He was probably just meeting with our "traditional allies", as he stated in his address to the CFR.  Of course, since he refuses to tell the American people just who he was meeting with, there is no way to ascertain the identities of foreign leaders whom he has met with.  This is disturbing.  Senator Kerry is not applying to become a news reporter.  He does not have to protect his sources in this regard.  He is running for the office of the President of the United States, and we the people want to know who he meets with and why.
       By refusing to come forward with the identities of the unnamed foreign leaders, and by telling us that it is none of our business, only his, Senator Kerry is not demonstrating that he views himself or his actions as a candidate as being accountable to the American public.  Apparently, sharing the sentiments of foreign leaders to the American people is okay, so long as he can protect those sources.  Should we not assume that such meetings actually never took place?
       Since Senator Kerry refuses to come clean, we should be forced to assume that he is lying.  He has about as much credibility as a news story which relies on anonymous sourcing.  How are we to know if he did not fabricate his sources? How are we to know if such foreign leaders are friendly to America or not? His refusal to come forward with the identities of these foreign leaders is a very serious issue, but the end result will be for the American people not to take anything that Senator Kerry says seriously.  After all, it's not any of our business, only his.