Secretary of State's priorities misplaced

The Russian army is on full battle alert on the Ukrainian border, ISIS is beheading their way to Baghdad, the Israelis have launched a rocket strike inside Syria and just for good measure, a few thousand immigrant children are streaming across our southern borders each day.

Given this background of uncertainty, you would expect the Secretary of State to be up to his Botoxed ears in international diplomacy.

But you would be wrong.

Instead, John Kerry Heinz was busy addressing the Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies conference in the State Department headquarters.

Apparently in some newfangled approach to crisis management, Kerry assured the gathering that "I'm working hard to ensure that by the end of my tenure, we will have lesbian, bisexual and transgender ambassadors in our ranks."

Does the term "misplaced priorities" ring a bell? How about "fiddlin' while Rome burns"? Or perhaps a newer term like "You can't fix stupid!"

Kerry, like Joe Biden, has always been a walking puzzle. And though he has every right to advocate on behalf of the LGBT community, isn't his timing a little suspect?

I must have missed the news cycle that discussed our woeful lack of lesbian, bisexual and transgendered ambassadors. I can only assume this issue is a pressing concern for a small slice of the American public. I likewise can assume that matters in the Mideast and in other hot spots are a tad more important to the future of this country.

After recognizing the lesbian, bisexual and transgendered diplomats at the State Department gathering, Kerry also promoted his efforts - along with others - to expand health care benefits for those seeking gender reassignments. He said that was a "right" not a privilege.

In the world of politics, they often talk of "optics." The prevailing notion is that it's important how issues "look" to the public. President Obama used "optics" when he hosted the Bergdahl family at the Rose Garden. OK, sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

My goal is certainly not to be anti-lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered. My goal is to point out the absurdity of our Secretary of State, at one of the most delicate times in our history, displaying new heights in timing stupidity.

But I am far from the first to point out the Kerry misstep so it goes to reason that folks at the State Department understood the awkward timing as well.

Yet, they proceeded at full speed on their social adjustment agenda with little regard to the honest-to-God problems we currently face.

And that my friends is not stupidity. It's unbridled arrogance.