John Cornyn is Just Being Silly
As part of P.BAM’s inaugural festivities, the Senate confirmed a bunch of the new President’s cabinet members. One of them was supposed to be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…supposed to be. Her confirmation was held up by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
No, he wasn’t in cahoots with Gov. David Patterson to delay him having to choose Hillary’s successor. His reason for holding up the process was…honestly, I’m not quite sure. Here’s his reasoning…
A spokesman for Mr. Cornyn, Kevin McLaughlin, said, “this is not an effort to scuttle or block the nomination, but a legitimate policy difference. Senator Cornyn’s goal is to create transparency on all levels of government.” Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, signed an agreement with the Obama transition team, putting some limits on foreign donations to his foundation, as well as stipulating annual disclosure of new donors.
But Senator Cornyn, in a letter to Mrs. Clinton last Friday, said he remained worried that her diplomatic activities would be compromised “unless tighter foreign fund-raising restrictions and transparency protocols are adopted.”
Only here’s the rub…the way things stand right now, instead of voting to confirm her today, the Senate is just going to vote to confirm her tomorrow. Even if we wanted to block the confirmation, we don’t have the votes, so the point of this exercise is lost on me.
I actually really like Cornyn and think he’ll be a great head of the RSCC, but this was just silly. Republicans are going to have to pick and choose our battles. Let’s be honest, the biased liberal media is going to call us divisive no matter what we do…so when we decided to take a stand, let’s make it count. Blocking Hillary Clinton (or Tim Geithner, for that matter) wastes a “those divisive Republican’s” news cycle that could be better used to fight the 2009 Fiscal Suicide Act, or the Big Labor Anti-Choice Act (otherwise known as “Card Check”).
Plus, Clinton and Geithner were gifts to us. Would we prefer Secretary of State John Kerry, or Treasury Secretary Paul Krugman?
UPDATE: Hmmm…
UPDATE DEUX: See?
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Senator Cornyn is also aware of another problem with the Hillary nomination: Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution, says no senator shall during the time for which he was elected be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the US (like Secretary of State) which the salary of such post have been increased during his continuance in office. (I simplified it for your and your readers’ benefit.
Bush increased the SOS salary during Hillary’s service as a senator, a seat which she didn’t give up until Obama nominated her. Unless the Saxbe Fix was applied.
Cornyn probably took the easier road of foreign donations vs. ignoring Article 1 Section 6 of the Constitution by Obama and our elected officials.
So Senator Cornyn is worried Hillary Clinton’s “diplomatic activities would be compromised “ from Bill Clinton’s charitable fundraising?
Stunning.
So…so? Senator Cornyn wasn’t worried United States policy would
be compromised by Halliburton continuing to sign contracts and
doing work Iran???
So…so? Senator Cornyn wasn’t worried VP Cheney’s policy and contracting activities and secret meetings would be compromised
by his previous relationship to Halliburton.???
Stunning.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3908753.stm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126507,00.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml
I think he is just setting himself up for a ” I told you so ” moment. This is a procedural maneuver and if anything ever comes of Bill getting some donations and Hillary even looking a little bit cross eyed and Obama has to flush her , John will be there looking as if he knew all along!!
As I said all day yesterday welcome to the age of OBAMA
Re: my previous post “would be compromised”?
Excuse me…. I said doing work in Iran-
IRAN -not Iraq.
This wasn’t silly – the Clintons are DUUURTY and continue to hide information. If Obama was really serious about transparency there would have been a lot more disclosure up front and this wouldn’t be necessary.
And nice job digging up 5 year old links on Halliburton and Cheney. That really applies here.