Kerry once stood for something noble, the cultivation of civic republican virtue, American decency, but then he became the victim of his own political ambition, and his desire to play a role on the world stage.
He is not exactly like Rostow, McNamara, or the Bundy brothers i.e. ‘The Best and the Brightest’ or Joe Alsop’s WASP Ascendancy: Joe was always myopic about himself and his Fraternity of goyisher technocrats.
Its hard to forgive Kerry’s 2012 DNC speech praising American Exceptionalism, Moral Authority, Strategic Imperatives, and ,of course the leadership of Obama: the price of admission was high, but Kerry paid that price with a real enthusiasm, and eloquence. Not to speak of a gift to exploit that political moment, as the necessary step to a place that would fulfill a part of his ambition.

Kerry, at the least, acted as the broker of the Iran agreement expressed his commitment to peace. Yet the Ukrainian Coup of 2014 led by ‘diplomats’ Neo-Con Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt, demonstrated the policy schizophrenia of Obama. And the mendacity of the American Policy Establishment, NATO, the EU and American NGO’s, that were/are political bad actors.
Given the ascendancy of the Know-Nothing Trump, its best to face the fact that Kerry wasn’t a paragon, but was a man and political actor, whose DNC speech codified his faith in the political metaphysics of American Exceptionalism. And insured his rise to that position of power and prestige.

Political Observer