Why Do Sens. Dodd and Kerry Want to Deny Otto Reich a Hearing? To Obscure The Extremism’ of Their Own Views

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that Senate Democrats are determined to block the confirmation of President Bush’s nominees to several senior posts. That’s not news. What was astounding, however, is that in at least one case — that of Ambassador Otto Reich to become the Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere — Senators Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts are unwilling even to permit the President’s choice to have a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Read Dodd’s Lips

This stance is especially puzzling insofar as Sen. Dodd declared after his party regained the majority earlier this year:

We’re going to move as quickly as we can. I think that every administration deserves to have its people in place. And if there are problems from time to time, we need to resolve those, because we want to get as many people out as quickly as we can so that we don’t have a long lag time in allowing our country to be well represented….

If ever there were a time when the United States needs to be “well represented” in this hemisphere it has to be at a moment like the present. After all, American interests are at issue all across Latin America: Venezuela — the largest foreign supplier of oil to this country — is in the hands of an increasingly autocratic and anti-American leader; Colombia is in the process of a political meltdown fomented by its narco-terrorists; strategic Panama is awash with drug money, gun-running, alien-smuggling and Chinese operatives; Argentina is in economic free-fall; major bilateral issues are in play with Mexico; Fidel Castro’s misrule in Cuba may finally be coming to an end, with huge uncertainties about what comes next; desperate agricultural and meteorological conditions are afflicting much of Central America; and, of particular relevance, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega may be about to stage an ominous political comeback in Nicaragua.

In fact, such times were made for a man of Otto Reich’s background, expertise and skills. As a former senior official in the Reagan Administration’s Latin American policy apparatus; as a U.S. Ambassador formerly posted to Venezuela; as an Hispanic American who fled the Communist take-over of Cuba and has been intimately involved with Cuban issues ever since; and as a businessman with ties and contacts throughout the hemisphere, Amb. Reich is a man in whom President Bush has rightly reposed his confidence. Throughout his career, Mr. Reich has worked to defend his adoptive country’s interests and secure the blessings of liberty for those who live south of our border.

How could it be, then, that such a man may not even be afforded an opportunity to present his qualifications and defend his record before the Foreign Relations Committee? It appears that the Committee’s chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden, has embraced a grossly distorted portrait of Mr. Reich circulated by a handful of died-in-the-wool, left-wing non-governmental organizations and legitimated by Messrs. Dodd and Kerry. An aide to Sen. Biden, presumably reflecting his boss’ views, is quoted in yesterday’s [Washington Post] as saying the nominee “is viewed as something of an extremist. That’s not the kind of person we need in a post like this.”

Who’s the Extremist’?

The real reason why Messrs. Kerry and Dodd are fighting so hard to prevent Otto Reich from getting his day in court is that a full hearing on his nomination would likely demonstrate that there are extremists in the room, alright, but that Mr. Reich is not one of them. If anybody fits that harsh billing it would actually be Senators Kerry and Dodd.

Let’s recall, Messrs. Dodd and Kerry were leaders of congressional efforts on behalf of the Sandinista cause. They assiduously sought to undermine and thwart the Contras’ ultimately successful efforts to liberate Nicaragua from the corrupt Marxist misrule of Daniel Ortega. The basis for this effort stems from Sen. Dodd’s deeply held belief that“we shouldn’t [assume] that [if] someone happens to be a Marxist, that immediately they’re going to be antagonistic to our interests or going to threaten our security.” Furthermore, his response to the idea that the Sandinista’s were “promoting revolution without frontiers” underlies his mis-characterization and subsequent criticism of Mr. Reich, when he stated that “[he doesn’t] necessarily believe that because they use that kind of rhetoric that they’re determined to overthrow every neighboring government in the Central American region.” They may, understandably, be reluctant to admit that fellow travelers like them were on the wrong side in that defining moment during the 1980s, when Latin America’s future hung in the balance — and when Ronald Reagan and outstanding subordinates, like Otto Reich, helped ensure that the region (apart from Castro’s Cuba) secured the opportunity for democratic self-governance and economic growth.

What is more, it is the likes of Senators Dodd and Kerry who are now trying to provide life- support for the one regime in the region that has successfully denied its people’s that opportunity: Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba. They seek to end the U.S. embargo — or at least to gut it by easing restrictions on American travel, agricultural sales, shipments of medicine, etc. They consider Mr. Reich as an “extremist” for having long and correctly argued a different approach: “In our relationship with Cuba we should remember how the Soviet Union was defeated [i.e. through economic warfare]a pro-active policy toward Cuba, similar in scope, can likewise succeed in bringing about peaceful and rapid end to Communism in Cuba. But it will require imagination and resources.”

The Bottom Line

If Senators Christopher Dodd and John Kerry, and their chairman, Joseph Biden, persist in denying Otto Reich a hearing, they will be not be demonstrating that he is unfit for the post which President Bush wants to entrust to him. Far from it. Instead, they will be calling into question their own fitness to sit in judgment of Mr. Reich’s nomination and, for that matter, to play a prominent role in the formulation and articulation of American foreign policy.