Posted on 10/25/2001 3:40:20 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Bush nominee deserves better than old grudges --Otto Reich was nominated on July 12 to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric Affairs. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not even bothered to schedule a confirmation hearing for Reich, and has no plans to do so. The reasons have nothing to do with Reich's competence or qualifications, and everything to do with Connecticut SEN. CHRIS DODD'S affinity for Cuba's Fidel Castro and the communist Sandanista regime in Nicaragua.
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Otto Reich topped the list of 18 nominees Secretary of State Colin Powell said he would like to see confirmed before the Senate adjourns for the year. Congress' recess may begin in November.
Powell submitted the list in a letter dated Monday to Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A hearing on Reich's nomination as assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs has been held up while Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., looks into Reich's work as a State Department official, an ambassador to Venezuela in the 1980s and a lobbyist...---Powell Backs Latin American Nominee
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There is one thing Bush should do-
RECESS APPOINTMENTS. Daschle should stop frickin around, and Bush should call the Dems on this kind of baloney with appointments.
Daschle is holding up the function of our government because he doesn't want Democrats petty bull to be seen in the light of the present crisis.
That aside, the one thing I cannot figure out about Zell Miller, though, is why he continues to carry that (D) beyond his name. His actions and intentions have been (R) for a while now. Very few (D)'s recognize the threat from SA, or simply refuse to acknowledge it.
Can he be a DINO?
However, never trust anyone that has been a (D) as long as he has. Even if he later switches parties.
He's a politician.
We learned it as "If it was a dog it would've bit you." In fact, my Mom said it frequently, since at any one time any one of her six kids would be unable to find something that was right in front of his or her face.
I guess Moms do things a little differently in Georgia.
I don't think Zell will ever change parties (during term) - he's different than most politicians - he has a conscience. But I hope that next time he's elected he'll be noted as "Miller (GA-R)".
Gee, now who was in the oval office when all this happened? I forget.
The Cubans are not the only foreigners to interfere with Senate confirmation. Oscar Arias, former Costa Rican president and Nobel peace laureate, delivered an assault on Reich in a Los Angeles Times article ("A Nominee Who Stands for War"). This appointment, Arias contended, exalts "hard-line ideology over flexibility and bipartisanship." He brazenly demanded that Bush "find another candidate for the job."
Arias's bill of particulars against Reich is a watered-down version of wild attacks by The Nation magazine and other left-wing sources that are circulating on Capitol Hill. Republican senators see the hand of Janice O'Connell, longtime foreign relations aide to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (who simultaneously is launching a campaign for better United States relations with Castro).
Such disparate anti-Reich sources as Castro, Arias and O'Connell share a common animosity. They cannot forgive Reich for his persistent Reagan administration role in keeping the Contras alive, assuring the ultimate fall of Nicaragua's Marxist dictatorship. Arias specifically bemoans Reich's "allegiance to the Reagan administration's hard-line policies toward Central America."
The assault by the Cuban Communists is particularly noxious in its fascist and Nazi name-calling. Reich's father, an Austrian Jew, fled Hitler's Anschluss in 1938 for Cuba, where Otto was born. His grandparents, left behind in Austria, perished in the Holocaust. [End Excerpt]
We need more statesmen. I'm afraid the U.S. Senate doesn't have any.
Hopefully Otto Reich can get past Chris Dodd's obstruction.
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