Beginning late last week and continuing now, Egypt is in turmoil. For the second time in three years an uprising of Egyptians has ousted the established government. In the process an American citizen was killed, and American diplomats were removed from Cairo.
As the American response, Secretary of State John Kerry, America’s top diplomat, decided to spend time on his $7 million yacht. Due to the advancements of modern technology, it is entirely feasible that Kerry could accomplish just as much from his yacht as he could from his office. However, the situation gets sticky when the State Department officially says that Secretary Kerry was not on his yacht and any claim otherwise was false.
In response to the official statement by the State Department, a picture of Kerry getting onto his yacht from a single-person kayak went viral. Later, the State Department conceded that Kerry was “briefly” on his yacht, claiming that it did not interfere with his work.
Stop. Rewind.
So, not only was Kerry spending time on his yacht while chaos unfolded in Egypt which included Americans in the crossfire, but the State Department was willing to lie about it. Additionally, the same reporter that tweeted the first picture of Kerry on the yacht followed it up the next day with another picture of Kerry on the yacht that day as well.
This all comes after Kerry reportedly called Mohamed Kamel Amr asking if he was still Egypt’s foreign minister hours after Amr announced that he had resigned from office and the news had been reported on in the United States. Apparently keeping up with Egypt was too complicated for Kerry.
If the words “John Kerry” and “yacht” seem to ring a bell with you, it may be because Kerry dodged a half million dollars in taxes owed for that very same yacht. Granted, he cut a check to Massachusetts for that amount once he was caught, but that’s equivalent to a kid putting the cookie back in the jar when mom catches him before dinner. This is the same Kerry that promised in the 2004 presidential campaign to raise taxes on households making over $200,000 a year. Doesn’t quite add up, does it?
All of this is coming from the man who is currently in the highest diplomatic position in the United States, and thus, the world. If he had simply been on his yacht during the Egyptian uprising, then he likely would have only caught a little bit of flak. However, when you add in the facts that the State Department lied about it and that Kerry was uninformed about the political landscape in Egypt, then the situation jumps from practically nothing to a whole lot of something.
Additionally, this is not the first time that Americans have seen Obama’s State Department in such a negative light. Add to that the current conceptions of the NSA and Justice Department and IRS, and Americans are seeing an administration floundering. Which agency is next?
Trenton Winford is a public policy leadership major from Madison.
