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Kerry’s political blackmail

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Kerry blocks DeMint trip to Honduras

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blocked Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) trip to Honduras slated to begin Friday, according to DeMint’s office.

But the chairman’s office claimed that the DeMint trip was stopped because the South Carolina Republican is blocking two of President Barack Obama’s nominations: Auturo [sic] Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Tom Shannon, the current assistant secretary and nominee to be ambassador to Brazil.

Political blackmail, barefaced tit-for-tat, “do what I say or else”, call it what you may, but Kerry’s totally open about it:

Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones responded Thursday evening that “Senator DeMint’s statement wins an A for ‘audacity.’”

“The Foreign Relations Committee always prefers to operate in a bi-partisan and collegial fashion, and it did so when it approved these two nominees by votes of 14 to 4 for Mr. Shannon and 15 to 4 for Mr. Valenzuela,” Jones told The Hill in a statement. “But now Sen. DeMint refuses to let the nominations of two distinguished public servants even be considered on the floor of the Senate.”

“When Senator DeMint lifts these holds and allows these individuals to receive an up or down vote on the Senate floor, the Committee will approve his travel to Honduras, a country that is in the middle of delicate, political crisis.”

If the crisis is that delicate, why doesn’t Kerry himself go? Can his support of Zelaya bear no scrutiny?

Follow-up post, Friday 2 October
DeMint’s trip to Honduras is on

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Comments

  1. How can it be that Kerry can pull this off? Surely there is private money available to finance the trip. What exactly is Kerry going to do if he just goes? I really don’t understand.

    Since when is one Senator in charge of who gets to travel? And what is the worst they can do to DeMint?

  2. ABC news blog is reporting the trip MAY be back on. Apparently this is over funding for the trip, per the liberal http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3491/jim-demint-crybaby-us-senate (liberal snark warning).

    ABC says Mitch McConnell got the Defense Dept to agree to pay for the trip. So it may be back on. Which is great because it means the Executive is funding a Congressional fact finding trip — i.e. somebody in the White House is going to get an earful for making Kerry look like a fool. Here’s the ABC link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/10/demint-trip-to-honduras-back-on-travel-authorized-after-senate-leadership-intervenes.html