It’s a common affliction among politicians — vomititus of the mouth. For most, it strikes whenever they come within range of a news camera and a boom mic.

John Kerry has suffered since as far back as 1971 at least. Here is some of the earliest video evidence of his chronic condition.

As the years wear on, the disease manifests itself more and more as a matter of not knowing when to shut up because the audience is simply tired of listening to your endless prattle.

But, more serious cases involve the inability of the person to simply remain quiet when the subject matter concerns issues that should not be raised in front of particular others in attendance.

John Kerry is like a seven-year-old who thinks he has a secret — there is no greater joy or sense of self-satisfaction than letting others know he has been entrusted with the secret by telling them what it is he has been sworn to not tell anyone. To him, it is an exercise in a great “truth-telling”

It has been widely reported now that the Iranian Foreign Minister was recorded in conversation with a confidant as saying that Kerry informed him in meetings that Israel had attacked Iranian interests — military targets — in Syria as many as 200 times, saying that the disclosure of the information “astonished” him.

The context of the Foreign Minister’s telling of this story was not to disclose the subject matter of confidential communications between Kerry and the Foreign Minister, but rather for the Foreign Minister to demonstrate to the other party to the conversation the nature of his nominal influence over the foreign affairs of the Iranian government, and to emphasize the dominance of the Iranian military and security forces in the government. The Foreign Minister was making the point that his own government had kept from him such meaningful information about the level of military conflict between Israel and Iran in Syria while he was ostensibly working through diplomatic channels to advance Iranian interests in the region.

But a collateral consequence of the Foreign Minister’s reference is that he revealed the fact of indiscretions on Kerry’s part with the primary diplomat of a hostile foreign actor and the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

Kerry made a public statement yesterday calling the allegations in the New York Times story false and denying unequivocally that he ever had any such discussions with the Iranian Foreign Minister.

I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since. https://t.co/BTOdFE1khW

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 26, 2021

This is a lie — something at which Kerry is good experienced and persistent [reader’s suggestion with which I agree] based on his well-documented history.

We know it is a lie because there are two frames of reference from which to consider the truthfulness of the Iranian Foreign Minister’s comment.

Kerry is denying the issue of his indiscretions — but he is not denying that he met with and had discussions with the Iranian Foreign Minister and other Iranian government officials during the Trump Administration while he was a private citizen. He couldn’t deny having done so because after photos seemed to document the meetings, Kerry was forced to admit on September 12, 2018, that he had met multiple times with the Iranians, and he had discussed matters of geopolitical significance.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted Wednesday that he’s met with top Iranian officials in hopes of salvaging the scrapped nuclear deal — as he slammed the Trump administration for trying to further “isolate” Iran.

The one-time presidential candidate said he’s sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “three or four times” in places including Norway and Munich since leaving office last year.

It is worth noting that Kerry’s confirmation of his meetings and conversations with Zarif came while he was hawking his book “Every Day is Extra” as a guest on the Hugh Hewitt radio program — just another instance of Kerry’s lifelong inability to resist the urge to tell the world what he has been thinking and doing while ostensibly out of sight.

What we are now left with is the relative “credibility” fight between the claim by the Iranian Foreign Minister that Kerry discussed Israeli military operations that the Foreign Minister had not been aware of or Kerry’s denial that any such topic was ever the subject of the discussions between them.

Online criticism from the left-wingers of those condemning Kerry has included a reference to the fact that such condemnation rides on a belief in the truthfulness of an Iranian government official.  But that defense of Kerry can’t be divorced from the fact that it’s the same Iranian government official in whom left-wingers have placed trust and confidence with regard to promises made by Iran concerning the development of nuclear weapons. They rely on Zarif’s honesty to support an Iranian pledge to not pursue nuclear weapons; I rely on his honesty in calling John Kerry a liar.

I think I’m on safer ground.

At the same time, there is no objective reason for the Iranian Foreign Minister to make the false claim about Kerry which is captured on audiotape.  The conversation was not about Kerry — it was about the Foreign Minister’s lack of influence within his own government.  The reference to Kerry is to provide a factual anecdote to prove a point — he learned more about military operations in Syria from Kerry than he learned from the Iranian military.

No purpose was served by offering up a false reference to Kerry in the discussion.  Having the recording leaked to the media, and the reporting of the Foreign Minister’s comments both in the Middle East and the West has done damage to Zarif’s image and standing.  Until someone from the Biden Administration explains how the Foreign Minister benefitted himself or Iran by making this claim about Kerry — if it is false — then the only conclusion that can logically be drawn is that the statement by the Iranian Foreign Minister is true, and Kerry suffered “vomitous of the mouth” during his various meetings with the Iranian government officials.  And that leads to the following:

What else did he tell them that we don’t know about?

We know he was attempting to undermine the Trump Administration’s intention of killing the nuclear arms deal with Iran that Kerry had negotiated, so he had a selfish motivation to hurt both the Trump Administration and the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu that opposed the deal.  If he made the disclosure as represented by Zarif, what else did they discuss and in what detail?

No one is in love with the sound of their own voice more than John Kerry, and no one is more enthralled by the quality of their own intellect than John Kerry.

John Kerry simply doesn’t know when to shut up, and that makes him the very worst sort of politician to install in a position like Secretary of State where what you choose to not say is oftentimes more important than what you do say.