Bush Appoints Another Unqualified Candidate
From an editorial in today's Orlando Sentinel:
President George W. Bush's nominee to head the State Department office for refugees and humanitarian crises is not worthy of Senate confirmation.
Ellen Sauerbrey is a former Maryland legislator and two-time loser for governor who was Mr. Bush's state campaign chair in 2000. She has scant experience with refugees and humanitarian crises. She lacks the management background to take over a $700 million office on which lives and international good will often rest.
Mr. Bush's political opponents have been too quick to oppose his nominees for ideological reasons. But despite anti-abortion views that have riled critics, it is Ms. Sauerbrey's inadequate qualifications that make her unfit.
Surely the president can find a more capable nominee.
posted by storiesinamerica @ 12:27 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Nonsense.
On refugee issues, Mrs. Sauerbrey is solid. As ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, Mrs. Sauebrey spends much of her time working on HIV/AIDS in the developing world, the sex trade and women's educational needs -- all of which are key issues for refugees. She has also been a driving force behind the push to end trafficking in women and children, something the U.N. crowd mostly ignored until the Bush administration
The Bush crowd would make better use of its time fighting trafficking and the exploitation of women than making it harder for women to access contraception.
Here are a few more article about Sauerbrey:
From the Miami Herald:
Her only management experience was a stint as a U.S. Census manager in several Maryland counties in 1970.
Refugee advocates are concerned about positions she has taken at the United Nations that seem to undermine women's basic rights. That's not acceptable when 80 percent of all refugees are women and children.
The Modesto Bee:
Most attention to her nomination has centered on Sauerbrey's lack of qualifications, but her far-right views and agenda as an abortion opponent are equally worrisome.
An example: In the spring, as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, Sauerbrey threw an embarrassing wrench into the commission's 10-year reconfirmation of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Sauerbrey tried to attach an amendment to the document. The amendment asserted that the Beijing goals "do not create any new international human rights, and … do not include the right to abortion." Utterly alone, the United States was forced to withdraw the amendment.
Sauerbrey has limited management experience and no expertise in worldwide crises. She's a poor choice to be the U.S. diplomat responsible for refugees and worldwide humanitarian emergencies.
For more info, visit: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Sauerbrey&btnG=Search+News
"She lacks the management background to take over a $700 million office on which lives and international good will often rest."
700 million? Oh, please. She sat on the appropriations, ways and means and joint budget committees, where for years she helped manage the state's multi-billion-dollar budget. Then the friggin' woman built an alternative budget for the entire state.
You're really straining your credibility with this sort of silly Bush bashing for the sake of Bush bashing.
Believe me, life would be much easier if I didn't feel the need to publicize stories that don't receive the attention they deserve. I would never consciously choose to bash Bush because frankly, it isn't fun. What I find even more difficult to deal with are people who support Bush's every move.
I would have posted the editorials if a female Democrat appointed Sauerbrey.
The fact is, conservative papers have criticized her nomination.
Did you read this?
In the spring, as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, Sauerbrey threw an embarrassing wrench into the commission's 10-year reconfirmation of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Sauerbrey tried to attach an amendment to the document. The amendment asserted that the Beijing goals "do not create any new international human rights, and … do not include the right to abortion." Utterly alone, the United States was forced to withdraw the amendment.
I welcome your criticism; preaching to the choir gets old after a while: http://www.storiesinamerica.org/
And could someone please tell me just what the frick does someone's views on abortion have to do with running a state dept. office for refugees and humanitarian crisis? Maybe we should look into her views on baseball's designated hitter rule as well.
Because unfortunately, the Bush administration believes it knows best when it comes to women making decisions about their bodies, reproductive choices and futures. This woman, like most Bush appointees, will push for abstinence only, which is not a realistic solution to the growing problem of unwanted pregnancy and babies born with HIV.
"Where sexual violence is widespread, abstinence or insisting on condom use is not a realistic option for women and girls. There is no full access to prevention options-including microbicides and female condoms. Nor, does marriage always provide the answer, in many parts of the developing world, the majority of women will be married by the age of 20 and have higher rates of infection than their unmarried sexually active peers, often because their husbands have many sexual partners," observed Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general.
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