Why Not The Worst?

More Getting Ready For Hillarity!:

John Kerry rated worst secretary of state in 50 years

Entirely plausible (although I do remember the "This wouldn't be happening if Warren Christopher were still alive" jokes from the early 90's), but...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A new survey of scholars ranks Secretary of State John Kerry dead last in terms of effectiveness in that job over the past 50 years.

Henry Kissinger was ranked the most effective secretary of state with 32.2% of the vote. He was followed by James Baker, Madeleine Albright, and Hillary Clinton, as judged by a survey of 1,615 international relations scholars.

Hillary? Based on what? And if she was so effective, how did it all go to hell so quickly under her successor?

Or, why ask why?

THEN AGAIN: Could they have meant that one day Hillary might be regarded as the fourth most effective female Secretary of State? Hey, right now she has third place nailed down!

Comments

[Jeff Dobbs]

First to Worst.

[RickB]

judged by a survey of 1,615 international relations scholars credentialed communists."

That's why George P. Schultz isn't right up near the top.

[Appalled]

This is one case where I would like to see the survey, It appears likely that the participants were given one choice to pick as "most effective secretary of state in last 50 years", rather than an opportunity to actually rank the secretaries. So, really, Kerry did not come in as the "worst". He came in as "got the least votes for first". (Of course, I'd like to meet the person or two who did vote for him as most effective. One of them had to be John Kerry. The other is some academic in Colorado.)

By the way, the original source for the survey is here:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/#section-rankings

You have to look hard to find the results.

[Jeff Dobbs]

as judged by a survey of 1,615 international relations scholars

Kerry has failed the global test.

[MarkO]

Many years ago I was in the same law firm as Warren Christopher. I did not go to his funeral. A friend who did, and was close to Chris, said when he viewed the body, he was not certain Chris was dead. Just couldn't tell.

[Dave (in MA)]

MarkO,

Could you tell before he died?

[Jeff Dobbs]

Appalled:
By the way, the original source for the survey is here:

So if there were 1,615 responses, here's the vote total:

1.Henry Kissinger 520
2.Don't know 296
3.James Baker 286
4.Madeleine Albright 141
4.Hillary Clinton 141
6.George Shultz 91
7.Dean Rusk 57
8.Warren Christopher 25
8.Cyrus Vance 25
10.Colin Powell 17
11.Condoleezza Rice 7
12.Lawrence Eagleburger 5
13.John Kerry 5

[maryrose]

Williams will be reprimanded but retain his job. Somewhere Dan Rather is seething.
Obama has never been in the military like King Abdullah. He wouldn't last a day in boot camp because at heart he is a wuss.

[maryrose]

Condi should be higher than Cankles.
Colin Powell is about right.

[James D.]

MarkO,

In all seriousness, when he was SoS, I thought he looked like Dracula.

IF only we actually HAD Dracula as SoS. The idiot we've got now is a bloodsucking parasite anyway, we might as well have one who knows who his enemies are, and what to do about them.

[Marlene]

Obama mentioned the Crusades and the Inquisition at the prayer breakfast. (see Drudge) He is equating the history of 500-700 years ago with current events. What a fool.

[MarkO]

Chris was anything but spontaneous.

He was a brilliant lawyer with massive business connections. When he came back to O'M&M after being SOS, he was the first partner to receive compensation in excess of those of his same graduating class.

Those were the halcyon days of law practice in which the motto was "What do the boys want and why can't they have it?"

Now, I'm told, O'M&M is a series of profit centers with joint marketing agreements.

Money does corrupt.

[NKvirusedand back]

He is truly despicable and a fucking liar-- USA slavery? the pre 1865 abolition movement was primarily driven Christian religious fanatics, you know, like the ones who oppose abortion: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-people-committed-terrible-deeds-name-christ_840302.html

[Jeff Dobbs]

maryrose:
Obama has never been in the military like King Abdullah. He wouldn't last a day in boot camp because at heart he is a wuss.

But, but, but, Obama's claim in the 2008 election was that he really did consider joining the military.....

But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

It was Nixon's fault for getting us out of Vietnam, or maybe Carter's fault for not going to war with Iran. Either way, Obama could have been a super warrior patriot if only there had been a war going on for him to star in.

[Captain Hate]

The first Crusade started in 1096 so it's even older than that.

[matt]

Obama is the ultimate relativist. What a disgraceful human being. He is incapable of looking at the positives and instead is always seeking uniform fart perfection as defined by Marx, Derrida, Gramsci and Foucault.

I don't understand how Hillary escaped the bottom, though. She traveled more than any SoS in history and accomplished less. Getting bombed and dancing the night away in Colombia, South Africa and elsewhere is no way to go through life, young lady.

[matt]

unicorn fart perfection!! Damn you, spellcheck!

[Captain Hate]

I assume everybody who refused to vote for Kissinger because he's a Jew gave their vote to Baker.

[henry]

The Pope will speak to Congress in Sept. Did Obama get bypassed again?

[Marlene]

CH,I just looked it up,yes 900 years ago! Someone at the prayer group should have shouted...Dude! That was like 900 years ago!

[Brian Willams]

"Getting bombed and dancing the night away"

That's what I meant. That's what I totally meant. Not that I got shot down, that I got bombed. I regret it if anyone heard it differently than how I meant it.

[Soylent Red]

But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

Bullshit he considered it in high school. SOB didn't even register for the draft until Sept. 4, 1980, a full year after his 18th birthday and a year after he started Occidental. He probably only did so to stay eligible for federal student loans, until whatever magical ship came in that sent him to Columbia in 1981.

[Jack is Back!]

Is there any doubt now where this POS's religious sympathies lie?

[Jane]

It was Nixon's fault for getting us out of Vietnam, or maybe Carter's fault for not going to war with Iran. Either way, Obama could have been a super warrior patriot if only there had been a war going on for him to star in.

Were foreigners allowed in the military back then?

[Soylent Red]

Getting bombed and dancing the night away in Colombia, South Africa and elsewhere is no way to go through life, young lady.

You'll have to shout that into her good ear, matt.

[Eric in Boise]

I wonder if the Pope will tell Congress about all of those terrible things done in the name of Christ.

I also wonder how many Dims will boycott.

[RickB]

Well, the interference with the state religion of Mexico by Cortés was only 495 years ago. That was just prior to Christian missionaries (those who didn't wind up in the pot) beginning to interfere with the religious practices of Africans.

Darned Christians, always meddling.

[Ignatz]

A little history lesson for the Dumbass-in-Chief

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.....
....That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

[Danube on iPad]

I detest polls of this kind, for the reasons stated by Appalled. They are worse than meaningless.

[Janet]

When ISIS is committing jihad, they are obeying their Q'u''r'an & Allah.

[Miss Marple]

How nice of Obama to give us the opportunity to once again point out how younger folks are not being taught history.

[Janet]

why don't we ever hear how crap other old civilizations were?

Everything native American is celebrated, but lets hear about the cannibalism practiced in some of the tribes? How one tribe would slaughter another & carry off the remaining captives as slaves? Let's hear about some of that.

[Ignatz]

Let me make sure I have this straight;
George Schultz, who presided over the great victory against and the absolute demise of the Soviet Union and its vast network of satellites and client states is ranked lower than the dumb bitch who presided over not only its nascent rebirth under Putin with the historically embarrassing "reset" stunt but also helped give birth to a rising tide of the most virulent Islamic fanaticism in decades sweeping across the Arab and African world and stunningly treating this as a positive step?

That he is ranked below Kissinger, the author of the hopelessly defeatist detente campaign and inextricably bound up in the colossal failure in Viet Nam is itself an injustice.

[narciso]

in response to last night's query, one of the horde, who has a degree in middle eastern studies, had a book on early state craft in the Islamic world, so that might be it,

things that make you go hm, Carlos Slim's didn't have a front page piece on the Jordanian reaction to the incineration, putting it halfway through the paper, instead the led with the almost apocryphal
'28 pages' on the 9/11 report, tying it to the Moussaoui claims, of funding from the Kingdom,

[Ben]

Heh. George 'I know nothing' Schulz.made Cap Weinberger look like a genius.

[narciso]

well Christopher did look like Kip the alien from Futurama, he got the job at Foggy Bottom as a reward for the Christopher Commission, that helped set
LA ablaze, before the election,

[Miss Marple]

Yet somehow, Ben, he managed to negotiate a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviets, get our hostages home from Tehran, and initiate what resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Pretty good record for a dumb guy. Kerry should be so lucky.

[Miss Marple]

And now, we have the genius of John Kerry, Jen Psacki, and Marie Harf! How lucky we are to have smart people, unlike that doofus Schultz!

/sarcasm

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Bravo, Ignatz and Miss Marple. No matter how rigorously they labor to deceive and defraud, the progs can never be victorious as long as those who tell the truth keep speaking.

[Captain Hate]

Clutch Cargo has let the Rooskis know that the US doesn't plan on doing anything to help Ukraine.

[Miss Marple]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/5/obama-denied-request-jordan-predator-drones-islami/#.VNPTZspEDz0.twitter

[pagar]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-ciandella/2015/02/05/brian-williams-sits-board-congressional-medal-honor-foundation

No further words needed.

[PWT]

After briefly reviewing the source of the survey, I determined that the voters were completely sympathetic to democrats and thus the results should be taken with a grain of salt. By this I mean, in a lower survey, it was asked what is the most pressing international relations problem? The winner, Climate Change. Anyone who comes to that conclusion can not be trusted in regards to their judgement. To translate the results then, 4th place for Hillary and Maddy indicates that they were completely ineffective, rivaling the competence of an empty chair.

[jorod]

What difference does it make?

[Tom Bowler]

How seriously can we take the opinions of a bunch who rate Global Climate Change the number one foreign policy issue facing the United States today?