The underlying sadness
======================

The underlying sadness is a change in John Kiriakou that he says other people report and he does not perceive.

The observation

Asked in 2026 what differences someone who had known him fifteen or twenty years earlier would notice, Kiriakou answered that people have told him, as recently as two days before the conversation, and on several occasions independently of one another, that there is an underlying sadness about him that did not exist before. He has said he does not see this in himself, considering himself a very happy, well-adjusted person, and that he is not really sure what they mean. 

The change he does report

The difference he acknowledges is political. Kiriakou has described himself as having been far more mainstream, a Democrat who would say that a given candidate was not his man but that he was a Democrat and would fall into line. He says those days are gone and that he will never do it again. 

He illustrates the inheritance he broke with by recalling that his grandfather kept a framed photograph of Franklin Roosevelt on top of the television until the day he died, and that as a small boy Kiriakou thought the man was a relative. He still has the picture. 

Asked what could bring him back, he named the McGovern wing of the party retaking it, and then dismissed the prospect as one that will never happen. 

See also

- Embrace It And Keep Telling It
- John Kiriakou
