Blowing Off Imus Wakes Kerry In The Night (As It Should)

Imus enjoyed a photo he saw recently of Senator John Kerry whispering into Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's ear, and not for its homoerotic subtext.

"You were able to persuade this guy to hold run-off elections," Imus observed. Kerry called this result "critical," and insisted Karzai was not, as Imus suggested, "a thug."

He acknowledged the Afghan government's "problems" with corruption, but provided that the U.S. was making very specific demands to address it. Yet even if Karzai is able to clean things up, and President Obama sends 40,000 additional troops to the region, nothing will change without adequate governance and development, Kerry said.

"We don't have the ability, locally or nationally, to guarantee that the sacrifice of our troops gets backed up by legitimate efforts locally," he continued.

The question that really needs to be asked, in Kerry's view, is whether the U.S. would be in Afghanistan at all anymore if it did not border Pakistan. "There wouldn't be the concept of 100,000 troops there," he said. "There wouldn't be 68,000, let alone 10."

His ideal policy in the region would be one that is careful about Afghanistan, and forward leaning about Pakistan. Kerry supports sending more troops over, so long as the issues of local governance, development, and structure are addressed. Otherwise, he's not interested in risking more American blood and treasure.

Kerry doesn't believe the Taliban can again take over in Afghanistan, but he worries about them providing sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. "There's a lot of pressure on Al-Qaeda right now, and we want to keep that on them," he said.

The U.S. cannot simply pull out of Afghanistan, and needs to focus more on Pakistan, which he called "a much more serious national security consequence" to this country.

Fresh off a hip replacement, Kerry assured Imus the Senate would pass a health care bill just as soon as it came back from the Congressional Budget Office (good luck with that). Otherwise, Kerry was in great health and spirits. But that was all about to change.

"You know what Chris Christie did?" Imus asked his guest. "In the words of Mike Lupica, 'He stopped the train.'"

Back in 2004, Kerry lost his President bid despite Imus's support, and this unfortunate ending can be traced back to one particularly bad decision that Kerry said wakes him in the night: he did not stop his dopey campaign train as it hurtled through the Imus Ranch.

"You stop that train, you're President," said Imus, who, along with several teary-eyed children at the Ranch, had been waiting eagerly for Kerry to appear.

"I woke up the other day thinking about that, I swear to God," said the Senator, who had one final, perhaps retaliatory question for the I-Man.

"All I want to know is why Deirdre didn't trade you in during the cash-for-clunkers program?" he joked, clearly working through some deep-seated issues.

-Julie Kanfer