John Kerry, Secretive as Always, Slinks Away From 'Climate Czar' Gig

John Kerry is a real piece of work.

His infamous career started when he tossed someone else's medals over the White House walls to protest America's involvement in Vietnam before testifying that American troops acted like a Mongol horde (while mispronouncing "Ghengis Kahn") in that luckless country.

In his latest term as President Biden's "climate envoy," he kept his personal fiefdom's staff and payroll a more tightly guarded secret than a Sicilian don does the names of his favorite axe-men. That notorious right-wing publication, "The Boston Herald," has the news.

Yet, for someone who should understand the law, he sure ran from it. As we wrote last month, Kerry doles out six-figure salaries to all but one lone “policy analyst” in his office who just misses the lofty mark in the first public records release to the Herald from the notoriously secretive climate czar.
It was a rare glimpse into Kerry’s fiefdom that hits up taxpayers for $4.3 million in pay per year, according to records obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. But — there’s always a catch with Kerry — he did not reveal the names of anyone on his staff and redacted the titles of eight top aides paid up to $186,680 a year.
Now Biden is basically hiding Kerry away from the prying eyes of the Herald and Congress. The Office of Campaign and Political Finance is a great tool for watchdogs, but it won’t tell us what Kerry is up to, if anything, or who Biden sends him to consort with.

So, we don't know who he's hired, exactly who he is paying what, what they are doing, what Kerry is doing, or who he's doing it with - or to. No wonder the guy's a little tetchy when questioned.

This isn't the first time Kerry has skated close to the edge.

In case you’re thinking we’re being too hard on Kerry, just remember he dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. The Herald broke that story in 2010.
Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage – was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator used to summer with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port was listed as “Newport” on her stern.

John Kerry, to put it bluntly, is a poster child for everything that's wrong with Washington. He's never worked a day at an honest job in his life, at least not since leaving the Navy. He did go to Vietnam and, credit where credit is due, didn't have someone arrange a soft spot way behind the lines for him (like fellow climate alarmist Al Gore); he was out there where he could have conceivably been shot at, before writing himself up for the three band-aid-level Purple Hearts that sent him home early.

But since then? After marrying money, he went to Washington and entrenched himself firmly in the Establishment that his generation was so famous for deriding. As a senator, he was present. As a presidential candidate, he was, to use a military term, a complete Charlie Foxtrot. His Ohio goose-hunting photo-op was one of the most cringe-worthy events in modern political history, and it's up against some pretty stiff competition.

Now he's leaving the "climate office" to work on Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign at a time when the president's approval ratings are dropping faster than Bill Clinton's trousers at a White House intern orientation. The guy just can't win for losing - and yet, he somehow manages to maintain a fat government salary.

Which begs the question: What, exactly, will the once and former climate czar be doing for the Biden campaign? Who will he answer to? Who will report to him? How much will he be paying them? What will they be doing? Will President Biden have any idea what's going on? (OK, that last is a rhetorical question; we already know he won't.)

So much for the vaunted transparency of the Biden administration.

John Kerry, of course, will continue to draw a fat salary. He will almost certainly continue to do little or nothing except occasionally finger-wag at the rest of us over our pickup trucks and air-conditioning. And when his erstwhile boss either loses the 2024 election or is forced to step down, probably for "health reasons," John "Effing" Kerry will find a way to continue his career as a drain on the taxpayers. Like bad pennies, guys like him just never seem to go away.