Kerry Takes on the Swift Boat Nominee for Ambassador to Belgium

Bob Geiger calls this – Scumbags Become Ambassadors:

It should be an interesting afternoon in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as hearings begin to consider Sam Fox as George W. Bush’s nominee to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. While the White House lauds Fox’s qualifications for the role, it’s obvious from a tiny bit of searching that Fox’s primary qualification is that he is a big rainmaker for the Republican party with a healthy portfolio of donations over the years – this is a guy who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush, Dick Cheney, the Republican National Committee and every GOP candidate you can shake a stick at. But what’s especially interesting is that if you really look under the hood of where this guy’s political heart is at, you find that in late 2004 he gave $50,000 to no less solid citizens than the Swift Boat Liars who made it their mission to discredit a highly-decorated Vietnam Veteran in John Kerry. Now if that won’t buy you an ambassador’s post from George W. Bush, nothing will.

AP informs us that Senator Kerry got to question Sam Fox:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, grilled nominee Sam Fox about why he donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential race. The group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations against Kerry – then the Democratic presidential nominee – and charged that Kerry did not deserve the medals he won in the Vietnam War. “Might I ask you what your opinion is with respect to the state of American politics as regards the politics of personal destruction?” Kerry asked near the end of the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fox, one of the nation’s most generous contributors to Republican candidates and causes, said he shared Kerry’s concerns that politics “has become mean and destructive.” Fox said he didn’t recall who asked him to give to the group and blamed partisans on both sides for contributing to so-called 527 groups that are not subject to conventional campaign finance rules. “So is that your judgment that you would bring to the ambassadorship, that two wrongs make a right?” Kerry asked. “I did it because politically it’s necessary if the other side’s doing it,” Fox said.

The Swift Boat ads were not just the politics of personal destruction. They were dishonest. I’m sure the government of Belgium appreciates the gesture that our next ambassador fosters such dishonesty – unless the Senate rejects Mr. Fox.

Update: Some of the comments to this post are such stupid. They are asking me to point out where the Swifties lied. Fellows, learn to use Google. Even the clueless wonders at FactCheck were onto this back in August 2004. I guess the next request will be for me to point out where Dick Cheney has lied. Oh yea – did you know that Saddam really did have an active nuclear program? Pathetic!