Kerry is now Obama's Dean Rusk.

Remember Dean Rusk? LBJ's Secretary of State?

Here, from the New York Times' obituary for Rusk:

As Secretary, Mr. Rusk played almost two different roles. Under President Kennedy, his position was much less defined, with the President often taking advice from other officials and not paying that much attention to Mr. Rusk. But Mr. Johnson, himself an outsider in the Kennedy Administration, relied increasingly on the advice of his fellow Southerner.

Mr. Rusk's belief, which he never tired of stating, was that the United States had a commitment to South Vietnam that it could not break without risking a larger war with China or Russia.

He declared again and again that "as far as the United States is concerned, we have a commitment to South Vietnam -- and we shall meet it."

Mr. Rusk was also deeply involved in the hot and cold American relations with the Soviet Union. He helped engineer the first arms control accords with Moscow. And he was President Kennedy's adviser when the Soviet Union, in Mr. Rusk's word, "blinked" during the Cuban missile crisis. Praised by Johnson, Reviled by Protesters [sic]

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/22/obituaries/dean-rusk-secretary-of-state-in-vietnam-war-is-dead-at-85.html

Elizabeth Warren explains how it works in her book A Fighting Chance. page 106

"Late in the evening, Larry (Summer) leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. By now, I'd lost count of Larry's Diet cokes, and our table was strewn with bits of food and spilled sauces. Larry's tone was in the friendly-advice category. He teed it up this way. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders:

Kerry is now an insider. It's not his job to criticize any more. Criticism? That's our job.