Wouldn't you say Kerry has foreign policy experience?

[babylonsister]

5. Foreign policy experience. I mean experience beyond sitting on committees, “visiting,” voting, or talking; I mean direct diplomatic experience as an expert and a US representative with head of state status. None of this “well the vp could make up for that.” This means the ability to hit the ground running on Iraq and other disasters. Points to Gore and Clark.

From Sparkly's thread, which I think is honest and thought-provoking:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3044438

[wisteria]

1. I honestly would think Kerry would have as much experience as the other two mentioned.

Gore was in the VP role but he mainly did "visits" and discussed policies as a Representative of the Pres. They were wrong to leave out Kerry or even Dodd. Oh, and when did Clark ever have head of state status?

[TayTay]

2. Sen. Kerry has excellent foreign policy experience

Kerry has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since he first took office back in 1985. He has been on the sub-committee dealing with East Asian and Pacific Affairs since that time as well and was part of a delegation to the Phillipines in late '85 that helped turn that country away from the dictator Ferdinand Marcos toward a more democratic government under Corazine Aquino.

That's 22 years of dealing with other governments, being received by Heads of State of other nations, dealing with UN representatives and problems and helping to mitigate problems all over the world.

They don't come more experienced that that.

[karynnj]

3. Not to mention, that in addition to experience, he has vision

In another thread Dr Funkenstein, posted Kerry's major 2004 Foreign policy speech. Reading it a few days after the Lebanon op-ed showed how his foreign policy vision/point of view translates into real policy recommendations. It also explains the consistency in what he says - over places and over time. (This is not the only speech where Kerry provides a view of the vision he has.)

In early 2005, when Abbas first came to power, he was recommending very similar things. There you had Hamas providing a major amount of the services. Bush did not give Abbas the support he needed and pushed Israel to not postpone the elections. It really is possible with enough focused aid ging to infastructure that people would have bet on Abbas rather than Hamas? It also explains most of his view on why the Sunnis, if given a stake in the government and the future would themslves push the alien AlQaeda members out.

Time can give experience. Dilligent work and reading can give you a wealth of facts and an understanding of what is and what happened. It will also give you the contacts that are needed to mitigate problems. What time and effort don't guarrantee is vision. An example is Biden. He is a very serious foreign policy expert and has been on the SFRC longer than Kerry. If his speech, I think in lat 2005 to the CFR is typical - I don't think he has that kind of seamless, coherent view of how cultures and people interact and what motivates them. That speech made me sea sick - I literally couldn't follow it because it jumped all around. part of it was political posturing - he hit both the left and the right -only Biden was "just right". In that speech, he spoke of Bush's SOTU spech as JFK with a Texas accent and was very positive about what was a PNAC idealistic statement. I have never heard Gore give a philosophical speech on Foreign policy. He does have experience - but I did not see the spark of interest that he has on global warming.

Kerry's foreign policy ideas seem to stem from a life long interest and a very genuine respect for all cultures and all people. In her latest book, Madeline Albright speaking of where foreign policy should go, covers people holding the type of view she is behind. She quotes John Kerry from 1966! His Yale speech - the exerpt (if you replace Vietnam with something in the ME), could be Kerry today. It seems that many of his ideas were developed when he was very young and not experienced. The experience has added depth and assurance.