Look, I was pulling for a Kerry victory last time around, and the Swift Boat campaign against him always struck me as pretty sleazy, but it’s genuinely disturbing to see Ezra gloating that the prospective U.S. ambassador to Belgium may find his nomination scuppered over his political donations:
Senate Democrats, happily, aren’t eager to forgive and forget, and one top aide told The Washington Post that “Democrats may sink [the nomination] to show support for Kerry and teach a moral lesson about the personal destruction wrought by of independent 527 groups such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.” That would appear wise. If rich funders understand there will be actual consequences for filling the coffers of vicious smear artists, maybe they’ll be less likely write those $50,000 checks in the future.
Look, I realize “ambassador to Belgium” is a patronage gig anyway, but this still seems petty to the point of unseemliness. However loathsome we find some instance of political speech—and I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that legislators may not have wholly unbiased views about what is beyond the pale—surely it’s got to be a bridge too far when senators are openly and unabashedly using their oversight power as a means of scaring people away from supporting attacks on the politically powerful.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Reality Man // Mar 19, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Except they aren’t exactly using their power to scare “people away from supporting attacks on the politically powerful.” They’re preventing a particularly nasty sleazeball from becoming an ambassador. It’s not like he gave his money to AEI or something. He gave money to support a disgusting smear based on lies. There is a difference. There are consequences to such actions. Do we really want this guy to be ambassador to the country that hosts the seats of power of the EU (and IIRC also NATO) anyway, especially when our relations with Europe are so bad?
2 LP // Mar 19, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Reality Man wrote:
“It’s not like he gave his money to AEI or something. He gave money to support a disgusting smear based on lies. There is a difference.”
Well, maybe so. But the point is, do we want legislators to be the ones drawing the line between a ‘respectable’ campaign such as one promulgated by AEI, and a ‘smear based on lies’? Are current members of Congress really the people best positioned to be objective about this?
3 Steven Maloney // Mar 19, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Julian,
Did you ever hit the Hopkins debate case about the Clinton appointment as ambassador to Belgium/ As I recall, they appointed some guy who had flagrantly and publicly mocked Catholicism (problematic if you see the religious demographics of Belgium). Anyway, totally agree here… this is unforgivable pettiness. n general, I think citizens would do better if we all listened to libertarians about abuse of power concerns.
4 Reality Man // Mar 19, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Well, maybe so. But the point is, do we want legislators to be the ones drawing the line between a ‘respectable’ campaign such as one promulgated by AEI, and a ‘smear based on lies’? Are current members of Congress really the people best positioned to be objective about this?
Posted by: LP at March 19, 2007 4:14 PM
No, but they’re not criminalizing donations to AEI or Swiftie types. They’re the ones who have to choose whether or not a nominee gets to be an ambassador. Now, ambassador to Belgium may be patronage, but should it really? The Bush administration treats every ambassadorship as patronage. Belgium, because of NATO and the EU, has actual importance. Do we really want someone dishonest enough to support the Swifties to be ambassador to there?
5 Anthony C // Mar 19, 2007 at 9:34 pm
As I understand it, the more important the post the more likely that the appointment will be matter of political patronage. The appointment of Ray Seitz as ambassador to the Court of St James’s in the 90’s was considered startlingly exotic because Seitz was *gasp* a professional diplomat.
Similarly, Clinton appointed an ambassador to the Republic of Ireland who was more or less overtly pro-IRA, in no small part due to lobbying by the Irish-American lobby within the Democratic Party. I’m not sure that this sort of thing is particularly a GOP affliction.
Anyway, it seems to me that this ties into a bigger picture – namely that American public diplomacy is, for various reasons, pretty scandalously bad.
6 PG // Mar 19, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Steven,
I think you’re remembering the conservative uproar over Clinton’s recess appointment of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. Hormel was our first openly gay ambassador. Luxembourg is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, so Hormel’s political advocacy for homosexuals apparently was seen as an offense to Catholics. However, Luxembourg is decidedly more tolerant of homosexuals than our allegedly secular nation is: same sex civil unions are recognized nationwide; homosexual sex hasn’t been criminal since the 1700s; sexual orientation is included among race, sex, disability, etc. as a punishable basis for a hate crime.
But yeah, Clinton appointing a Gay, totally on par on with Bush’s nominating a Swift Boat supporter. If Republicans are unembarrassed to oppose someone because of the gender of his bed partners, the Democrats probably won’t feel much shame over opposing someone because of his support for dishonest political campaigns. I wonder if Bush is going to try nominating the guys who were calling South Carolina voters about McCain’s “black child” next.
7 KCinDC // Mar 20, 2007 at 10:56 am
I don’t understand how it can be unseemly to oppose a nominee because of his political activity but hunky-dory to appoint him because of it. Either political activity is an acceptable criterion or it’s not. How can it be acceptable for Republicans but not for Democrats, or acceptable for the president but not for the Senate, or whatever distinction you’re making?
8 kth // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:38 am
The unstated assumption in Julian’s post is that the president should have whoever he damn well pleases for his ambassadors, and that the Senate should only oppose those nominees if they are of low character (i.e., crooked or corrupt, not merely a patron of smashmouth politics) or are unqualified. Such a standard would make the presidency even more imperial than it already is, which I would think Julian would want to avoid.
9 Joshua // Mar 21, 2007 at 5:52 am
I agree with KcinDC on this one. The nominee’s donations to Republican groups are the main reason he was nominated. How is it then inappropriate to reject his nomination on that basis? I’m not saying I’d vote against confirmation, but I think it’s a valid question. If the only qualification a nominee has is that he gave a lot of money to Republican groups, then that’s the only qualification the Senate need to evaluate.
The same is true of judicial nominees, by the way. I’ll admit that Senators should disregard a SCOTUS nominee’s politics and focus only on his or her qualifications for office around the time Presidents disregard a lawyer’s politics and focus only on his or her “qualifications” (a notion that can never be apolitical anyway) for the bench when making appointments.