John Kerry

(I was born in 1950 - so that goes back to Dean Acheson!)

I will always regret that he never became President and Teresa never became first lady, but the things he has achieved as Secretary are incredible. The really interesting thing with the Cuba diplomacy is that it can easily be the first step to improving our relationship with all of Latin America. It is also incredible that the author of this does not even need too mention the Syria chemical weapons deal, the brokering of the Afghanistan election mess, and the hugely important climate change pact with China. All major accomplishments in their own right.

In fact, looking at that list, I wonder if he could have done better becoming President in 2005. For one, he would never have had as good a Secretary of State as the current Obama Secretary of State. He would have had to deal with both the horrible 109th Congress and the forces already starting that led to the economic collapse. I assume he would have handled everything, especially Katrina, far better than Bush, but no one would ever know what the alternate of keeping Bush would be.

The one reason I still think it would have been better is that I wonder if his 2004 plan for Iraq -- especially the regional conference to help structure an inclusive Iraq might have ended the war faster and left a stable Iraq where the Sunnis would not have been so left out of power that they were susceptible to joining ISIS.

I assume the next two months will be stressful and I hope that sanity wins and Obama has the votes. There really is no good alternative to this deal.