Senate confirms Kerry nomination for State Dept.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., emerges after a unan­i­mous vote by the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee approv­ing him to become America’s next top diplo­mat, replac­ing Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton, Tues­day. Kerry, who has served on the For­eign Rela­tions panel for 28 years and led the com­mit­tee for the past four, is expected to be swiftly con­firmed by the whole Sen­ate later Tues­day. (Asso­ci­ated Press | J. Scott Applewhite)

DONNA CASSATA

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The Sen­ate over­whelm­ingly con­firmed Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s choice of five-term Sen. John Kerry to be sec­re­tary of state, with Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats prais­ing him as the ideal suc­ces­sor to Hillary Rod­ham Clinton.

The vote Tues­day was 94–3. One sen­a­tor — Kerry — voted present and accepted con­grat­u­la­tions from col­leagues on the Sen­ate floor. The roll call came just hours after the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee unan­i­mously approved the man who has led the panel for the past four years.

No date has been set for Kerry’s swearing-in, but in a let­ter to Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Deval Patrick, Kerry says his res­ig­na­tion is effec­tive at 4 p.m. Fri­day. The State Depart­ments plans a wel­com­ing cer­e­mony for Kerry on Monday.

Obama tapped Kerry, 69, the son of a diplo­mat, dec­o­rated Viet­nam vet­eran and 2004 Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, to suc­ceed Clin­ton, who is step­ping down after four years. The Mass­a­chu­setts Demo­c­rat, who had pined for the job but was passed over in 2009, has served as Obama’s unof­fi­cial envoy, smooth­ing frac­tious ties with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Sen. Kerry will need no intro­duc­tion to the world’s polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary lead­ers and will begin Day One fully con­ver­sant not only with the intri­ca­cies of U.S. for­eign pol­icy, but able to act on a mul­ti­tude of inter­na­tional stages,” said Sen. Bob Menen­dez, D-N.J., who will suc­ceed Kerry as com­mit­tee chairman.

Sen. Bob Corker of Ten­nessee, the panel’s top Repub­li­can, called Kerry “a real­ist” who will deal with unrest in Egypt, civil war in Syria, the threat of al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa and Iran’s pur­suit of nuclear weapons.

Kerry, a force­ful pro­po­nent of cli­mate change leg­is­la­tion, also will have a say in whether the United States moves ahead on the Key­stone XL pipeline from Canada, a divi­sive issue that has roiled environmentalists.

Obama had nom­i­nated Kerry after Susan Rice, the U.S. ambas­sador to the United Nations, removed her name from con­sid­er­a­tion fol­low­ing crit­i­cism from Repub­li­cans over her ini­tial com­ments about the attacks on the U.S. Con­sulate in Beng­hazi, Libya.

Vot­ing against Kerry were three Repub­li­cans — Jim Inhofe of Okla­homa and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas. Absent from the vote were Sens. Patty Mur­ray, D-Wash., and John Hoeven, R-N.D.

“Sen. Kerry has a long his­tory of lib­eral posi­tions that are not con­sis­tent with a major­ity of Tex­ans,” Cornyn said in a state­ment. The sen­a­tor is up for re-election next year and could face a tea party challenge.

Kerry’s smooth path to the nation’s top diplo­matic job stands in stark con­trast to the harsher treat­ment for Obama’s other national secu­rity nom­i­nees — Chuck Hagel to be defense sec­re­tary and John Bren­nan to be CIA director.

Hagel, the for­mer two-term Repub­li­can sen­a­tor from Nebraska, faces strong oppo­si­tion from some of his one­time GOP col­leagues who ques­tion his sup­port for reduc­tions in the nuclear arse­nal and cuts in defense spend­ing. Law­mak­ers also have ques­tioned whether he is suf­fi­ciently sup­port­ive of Israel and strongly opposed to any out­reach to Iran.

Democ­rats have ral­lied for Hagel, and he has the announced sup­port of at least a dozen mem­bers in advance of his con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing on Thurs­day. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mis­sis­sippi will sup­port Hagel, a spokesman said Tues­day, mak­ing him the first Repub­li­can to sig­nal he will vote for the nomination.

Six Repub­li­cans have said they would vote against him, with some oppos­ing Obama’s choice even before the president’s announcement.

Bren­nan faces ques­tions from the GOP about White House leaks of clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion and from Democ­rats about the administration’s use of drones.

Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, R-S.C., threat­ened to block the nom­i­na­tion of both men until he gets more answers from the Obama admin­is­tra­tion about the assault on the U.S. diplo­matic mis­sion in Libya that killed Ambas­sador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Gra­ham, who ear­lier this month sig­naled he would delay Brennan’s pick, said in an inter­view Mon­day night with Fox News’ “On the Record” the he would “absolutely” block Hagel unless Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta tes­ti­fies about the attack in Beng­hazi, Libya.

Clin­ton tes­ti­fied for more than five hours last Wednes­day before the House and Sen­ate, but that wasn’t suf­fi­cient for Graham.

“Hillary Clin­ton got away with mur­der, in my view,” he said. “She said they had a clear-eyed view of the threats. How could you have a clear-eyed of the threats in Beng­hazi when you didn’t know about the ambassador’s cable com­ing back from Libya?”

Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Chair­man Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Tues­day that a hear­ing with Panetta on Libya is planned though the date is uncer­tain. Gra­ham wel­comed that news and said he would not thwart a com­mit­tee vote on the nomination.

“Happy as a clam. News to me,” said Gra­ham, who met with Hagel for 20 min­utes on Tuesday.

Pen­ta­gon spokesman George Lit­tle said Panetta had not responded yet to the request but that the depart­ment has been forth­com­ing with infor­ma­tion. He insisted that the Hagel con­fir­ma­tion process move as quickly as possible.

Two for­mer chair­men of the com­mit­tee — Demo­c­rat Sam Nunn of Geor­gia and Repub­li­can John Warner of Vir­ginia — plan to intro­duce Hagel, accord­ing to offi­cials close to the con­fir­ma­tion process. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because the com­mit­tee has not for­mally made an announcement.

As a White House emis­sary, Kerry has tamped down diplo­matic fires for Obama. He also has stepped ahead of the admin­is­tra­tion on a hand­ful of crises. He joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as an early pro­po­nent of a more aggres­sive pol­icy toward Libya, push­ing for using mil­i­tary forces to impose a “no-fly zone” over Libya as Moam­mar Gadhafi’s forces killed rebels and other cit­i­zens. He was one of the early voices call­ing for Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak to step down as rev­o­lu­tion roiled the nation two years ago.

Dur­ing his tenure, Kerry has pushed for reduc­ing the num­ber of nuclear weapons, shep­herd­ing a U.S.-Russia treaty through the Sen­ate in Decem­ber 2010, and has cast cli­mate change as a national secu­rity threat, join­ing forces with Repub­li­cans on leg­is­la­tion that faced too many obsta­cles to win con­gres­sional passage.

He has led del­e­ga­tions to Syria and met a few times with Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad, now a pariah in U.S. eyes after months of civil war and blood­shed as the gov­ern­ment looks to put down a people’s rebel­lion. Fig­ur­ing out an end-game for the Mid­dle East coun­try would demand all of Kerry’s skills.

The selec­tion of Kerry closes a polit­i­cal cir­cle with Obama. In 2004, it was White House hope­ful Kerry who asked a largely unknown Illi­nois state sen­a­tor to deliver the keynote address at the Demo­c­ra­tic con­ven­tion in Boston, hand­ing the national stage to Obama. Kerry lost that elec­tion to Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. Four years later, Obama was the White House hope­ful who suc­ceeded where Kerry had failed.

Posted by AP News on Jan 29 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.