If this is a Senate Committee, where are all the Senators?

When I made my way to Capitol Hill yesterday afternoon, I was expecting an exhilarating remainder of my workday. I was going to the Confirmation Hearing of 4 nominated and potential Ambassadors to be. Their prospective host nations would be Turkey, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. No one could argue that these are boring or safe places for a Foreign Service worker. Instead, three of the four nations are oftentimes threatened by extremism and dreaded Iranian regional influence. Furthermore, Turkey, has, in recent times, certainly shown signs of leaning East and putting the West behind it. This is not a good sign for a U.S. ally to show. Additionally, Iraq is a vulnerable nation and its future is surely uncertain, to put it mildly. To sum it up without going into details about the fragility and potential of relations with these nations, I could not think of a more crucial time to have qualified and overly prepared Ambassadors acting as the messengers of the American interest in Ankara, Beirut, Baghdad, and Sanaa. With that being said, I was dismally disappointed to see that of 19 members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, no more that 4 were present at any given point. Throughout the 3.5 hour hearing, less than 8 were present altogether. How could this happen? This was supposed to be the opportunity for the Senators to ask crucial questions, determine the quality of these servicemen, understand their goals... the list goes on and on. But not one Senator truly turned up the heat. Perhaps Senator Menendez of New Jersey succeeded in making the Ambassador to Turkey nominee rather uncomfortable when he asked the nominee if he had been to a Turkish Genocide Celebration on his visits to Turkey. He did this to follow up a series of Genocide related questions to underline a very clear point: Turkey mocks the Genocide. Besides Menendez's pressing questions, the Senators spoonfed the nominees questions they tackled with no difficulty, most of which they had already addressed in their initial statements. Perhaps the Senators have so much faith in Barack Obama's nominations that they saw no need to question. Although, I doubt this theory holds true for the Republican Members. Where was the true American tradition of checks and balances? Perhaps I am being too cynical, perhaps these four nominees will do a marvelous job, and perhaps the Senators are simply far too busy to partake. In any case, I still can't help but wonder about possible apathy on their behalf.



Regarding the nominee to Turkey, he appeared to be a knowledgeable man, with an admirable reputation as a U.S Foreign Service agent. He addressed the Genocide when asked, referring to it as the massacre of 1.5 million, without blatanly calling it a genocide. I saw several prominent Turkish lobbyists, seated in front of me, scribble away fervently as he addressed the issue.

He gave an interesting response regarding Turkish mistreatment of the internationally honored Ecumenical Patriarch (recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal from the U.S. Congress). The nominee answered this question with the following:

"I will give it every effort and use the devices of diplomacy. Perhaps there are a couple of newer wrinkles to bear. When I would speak with the Turks on human rights issues, particularly religious freedom issues, one of the points that I found most salient, and that really hit home with the Turks is to appeal to their pride. And historic tolerance, they see it as part of a national branding of the Turkish character, if you will. And when Catholic Spain was burning Jews, and Muslims and heretics, only half a millennium ago, which in Middle Eastern time is less time than for us, Turkey welcome the Jews of Spain to come there and profited greatly from that. The Ottoman Empire also profited heavily from having Greek Christians, Armenian Christians in their highest offices of government as ministers until the end of the Ottoman Empire. Turks take pride in that, but don't always live up to it in the modern time. So I would certainly remind the Turks of that great tradition that they had. Beyond that, it's public diplomacy."

I wonder if he remembers that the reason those Armenian ministers no longer served was because they were all taken from their homes and beheaded one fateful night?