Suggestion for John Kerry: if traveling makes you so tired that you say things undermining the war against radical Islamic terrorism, do us all a favor—stay home on Nantucket and conduct your diplomacy by Skype . . .
On today's Morning Joe, here's how Mark Halperin explained Kerry's despicable statement about the "legitimacy" and "rationale" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks: "Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely." Was Kerry speaking "imprecisely"—or did he let the truth slip of precisely how he and President Obama really feel?
Note: back in the day, the British satirical magazine Private Eye coined the phrase "tired and emotional" as a euphemism for "drunk." Not saying Halperin implied that here.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Mark Halperin, I brought up John Kerry this morning. It's, we understand this is extraordinarily difficult situation. But it is hard to imagine the administration getting more things wrong tonally, at least. The president's disastrous press conference a few days ago and John Kerry tried yesterday seeming to try to justify at first and then pull back or at least explain the attacks of Charlie Hebdo. He said well, you can understand why they would do that if you just looked at the reasoning and then misstating the facts on the ground, underestimating the degree of sophistication of these attacks saying well, anybody that wants to blow themselves up can blow themselves up.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We have Josh Earnest coming up.
JOE: Josh Earnest is coming up; we're going to be asking these questions, but what's going on inside the administration? Why is there a constant effort to underplay the significance of the threat from ISIS?
MARK HALPERIN: Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely. And now is just not a time for any leader to be speaking imprecisely.
