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Apparently Chris Hill’s testimony this morning didn’t change Sen. Sam Brownback’s mind. On the Senate floor just now, Brownback delivered a blistering denunciation of the Obama administration’s ambassador-designate to Iraq, owing to what he called Hill’s "dishonesty" and even lawlessness when Hill was the Bush administration’s envoy to the six-party talks with North Korea. He gave the Bush administration, which signed off on Hill’s negotiations with the North, a pass, while placing the blame for sidelining human-rights concerns entirely with the envoy, and dissented from the idea that the U.S. gained anything materially from negotiations with the North despite the destruction of the cooling towers at the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and the return of international arms monitors. "I do not acquiesce to this nomination," he said.
What he didn’t say, though, was whether he’d attempt to place a hold on the nomination if it clears the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I’ve got a call out to his spokeswoman to determine that and will update when I hear. The committee expects to vote on Hill’s nomination on March 31.
It remains something of a quixotic fight for Brownback. No senator expressed opposition to Hill during this morning’s nomination hearing, and the Pentagon has gone on record in saying that the ambassadorship in Baghdad needs to be filled as soon as possible.
Crossposted to The Streak.
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I can’t imagine that this is a big issue in the Kansas gubernatorial race, so is there any other political purpose for doing this? Is this directed at President Obama and his foreign policy? Is it personal? Is it simply what Sen. Brownback says it is, a concern about Amb. Hill’s qualifications? Obstructing Obama’s Labor secretary and domestic policy advisers is one thing, but this has serious foreign policy and national security implications, so there better be a good reason for this.
Personal pique at having been “lied to,” as Brownback defines it. There is no principle involved whatsoever.
I don’t know about this, is Brownback saying that Hill lied to him on a personal matter, or as an executive branch official lying to a member of the Senate about government business?
More the latter. But it seemed like a mixed bag from Brownback’s testimony. There’s no reason to doubt his sincerity in believing that the North Korean regime is too odious to negotiate with. He elided the question of why his problem wasn’t with George Bush rather than Chris Hill, saying essentially that he looked into Bush’s eyes and saw he believes in North Korean human rights.
This isn’t very comforting. So it is either a kind of pettiness one would expect more from a John McCain than an actual adult, or it is John Bolton-esque contempt for diplomacy with those “godless commies,” or, probably, a combination of the two? And for a senator to give Bush a pass because he wasn’t really all there/totally in charge/has the mind of a child, I’d expect that from random strangers at the bar explaining why they blame Cheney and not Bush for the past eight years, but wow. Depressing. You must get pretty damn cynical, Mr. Ackerman, covering these a-holes.