What do Gayle Smith, Wendy Sherman and Susan Rice have in common?
This past Thursday, Gayle Smith who is currently Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at the National Security Council directed by Susan Rice, had her confirmation hearing to become the next Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
It was not much of a hearing.
She got a bunch of “softball questions”.
Her prepared statement basically said she will save at least half the world if she snags the job. “USAID is uniquely positioned to flexibly respond to humanitarian crises with agility and to provide enduring leadership to solve the world’s most intractable development challenges,” declared Smith’s statement for the record.
Mekonnen Getachew, an Ethiopian human rights activist interrupted Smith’s testimony and was escorted out of the hearing room.
Ethiopian human rights activist Mekonnen Getachew
Most of my readers are aware of my opposition to Smith’s appointment and Senate confirmation.
I registered my principled objection to her confirmation in my May 12 commentary in The Hill. I argued Smith’s “long and chummy relationship with Africa’s strongmen will make her a weak advocate of human rights, the rule of law and good governance on the continent.”
Most of my readers also know that over the past couple of months I had “locked horns” with U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
In three weekly commentaries, I challenged Sherman to defend her preposterous and willfully ignorant claims that “Ethiopia is a young democracy” and that the May 24 election will be “free, fair and credible.”
Sherman’s champions of “Ethiopia’s young democracy”, the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF), recently declared they have won 100 percent of all the votes they had counted in the May 24 election clenching all 442 seats.
They are expected to make an announcement anytime that they have also clenched 100 percent of the remaining 105 seats. (It is rather amusing that Sherman’s champions could count and certify their election victory for 442 seats in three days but are taking several weeks to certify the remaining 105.)
I correctly predicted a year ago that the T-TPLF would win the 2015 elektion by 100 percent!
I just can’t wait to hear Sherman congratulating the T-TPLF on its 100 percent victory in an elektion that was “free, fair and credible”.
Who said Sherman won’t be around to repeat her claim that “Ethiopia is a young democracy”!?
The New York Times reported, “Obama’s Chief Negotiator in Iran Nuclear Talks Plans to Depart After Deadline for Deal”.
The NYT did not mention a single word about Sherman’s monumental gaffe that “Ethiopia is a young democracy.”
Obama’s said Sherman was “one of the most effective diplomats of her generation.” Effective or defective diplomat?
If Sherman is “one of the most effective diplomats of her generation”, then Ethiopia is indeed a young democracy!
The scoop about Sherman’s “resignation” at the end of this month is that she botched the Iran nuclear job just as she did the nuclear negotiations with North Korea during the Clinton Administration.
According to one report, “While serving in the Clinton administration, Sherman was tasked with being part of the team that was supposed to stop North Korea from being able to obtain a nuclear weapon. Shortly after Sherman and the rest of the Clinton team inked the agreement, North Korea reportedly obtained nuclear weapons with relative ease.”
Amazingly, Sherman was given the top job even though she “did not have any diplomatic experience prior to the talks that she led with North Korea”. No wonder she botched it.
In the end, she became a victim of the Peter Principle. She reached her level of incompetence for the second time with the Iran nuclear job, and now, out the door!
To read the rest of the commentary, click HERE.
