Day: March 28, 2007

Bush Embroiled in Belgium Envoy Crisis, Blames ‘Politics’

Buck Banks

Although our country is at war in Iraq, the United States will have to continue to carry on without diplomatic leadership in Belgium after President Bush announced today he was withdrawing his nomination of Sam Fox to the post of ambassador to the Benelux nation. The reason?

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush believes Fox is qualified to serve as ambassador but withdrew the nomination “because of politics.”

Oooh, politics — that old bugaboo that sometimes gets in the way of George Bush getting what he wants, except when it helps him get what he wants. In this case, however, it wasn’t politics so much as Missouri moneybags Fox’ decision to financially back a political loser — those nasty Swift Boat Veterans who fought so long and dirty against Sen. John Kerry’s bid for president in 2004.

‘Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth.’
— Sen. John Kerry

Fox, a Bush supporter from Missouri, had come under fire for contributing $50,000 in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which spent $26 million disparaging Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s service during the Vietnam War.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said the White House had made a “wise decision” in withdrawing Fox from consideration.

“His unwillingness to denounce the reprehensible activities of the Swift Boat organization and express regret for providing $50,000 to bankroll the organization convinced me that he would not be an acceptable candidate to represent the United States abroad,” he said.

Dodd is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was preparing to vote on Fox’s nomination today until Bush announced the withdrawal. Dodd said Tuesday that he would oppose Fox. Kerry also is on the committee, and we can guess which way he would have voted, though all he said was that the White House made “the right decision.”

Of course that didn’t stop the White House from trotting out its favorite whiny accusation:

“Some members of the Senate would have voted against his nomination, which would have prevented him from serving in this important position,” Perino said. “So we are disappointed that they made their decision based on partisan politics instead of his leadership abilities.”

Seems Fox’ “leadership abilities” are concentrated in his wallet and his ability to extract contributions on behalf of the Republican Party. We’re certain he would have achieved a lot as ambassador to Belgium.

Fox, 77, of St. Louis, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and has helped raise millions for the Republican Party over the last three decades. He hosted a record-setting Washington fund-raiser in 2000 that took in $21 million. Fox and his two sons, Gregory and Jeffrey, were named “Rangers” in Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign by each raising at least $200,000 for the effort.

In a side note to the Fox story, everybody’s favorite turncoat-for-sale, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, testified in favor of Fox at his February confirmation hearing and stood by him as late as yesterday, probably because the Fox family contributed $23,500 to Lieberman’s re-election campaign in October when he successfully ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary.

Way to be independent, Joe!

Thompson Only as Conservative as McCain, Brownback and Hagel 80 Percent of the Time

Buck Banks

The rest of the time, he’s more conservative: Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is being described in the MSM as a conservative’s conservative as he mulls a possible presidential bid. But CQPolitics conducted a comparison (follow link, then click on “chart” to download the PDF) of his Senate voting record to that of Republican candidates Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, and potential prez candidate Sen. Chuck Hagle of Nebraska.

Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion …

The upshot of it is that there’s not much of a difference in their voting records, so Republicans are just going to have to decide between them based on their looks and personalities. Good luck with that, folks.

During the eight years that Thompson and McCain served together, they cast votes on 102 CQ-defined key votes and agreed on 83 of them — or 81.4 percent of the time.

Thompson showed a similar rate of agreement on key votes with Brownback and Hagel. Thompson and Brownback agreed on 57 of 70 key votes (81.4 percent) for which both senators participated. Thompson and Hagel voted the same way on 57 of 71 key votes (80.3 percent) during the six years they served together.

The four senators evince agreement on many legislative issues. Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion, to approve tax-sheltered education savings accounts, and to enact a balanced-budget constitutional amendment.

Among the instances in which Thompson and McCain differed were votes in 2002 to effectively extend a repeal of the estate tax beyond 2010, to authorize oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to postpone tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards. Thompson voted “aye” and McCain voted “no” in all three cases.

Also in 2002, Thompson agreed with McCain but opposed Hagel and Brownback — and most Senate Republicans — in backing a rewrite of campaign finance laws that barred the national party committees and federal officeholders from raising the unlimited “soft money” dollars upon which the parties had come to rely. McCain was a chief sponsor of that law.

In 2001, Thompson opposed and McCain supported a Democratic bill to bolster the rights of patients in managed care plans. Hagel and Brownback joined Thompson in opposition.