Earlier this week, during Secretary of State John Kerry’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) took strong issue, albeit calmly, with Kerry’s insistence that President Obama can initiate his campaign against ISIS without a new war authorization from Congress. Based on reporting by Pete Kasperowicz at The Blaze, here are some of Corker’s more strongly worded comments on the issue:
To say that you’re going to do this, regardless of what we say, you’re not going to ask for buy-in by the United States Senate or House of Representatives on behalf of the American people, in a conflict that you say is going to be multi-year, some people say a decade, taking us into another country with a different enemy, is exercising the worst judgement possible …
Corker essentially accused Kerry of claiming to want new authority, but at the same time being unwilling to actually work with Congress on new language, and said his comments show the administration is playing a “political game.”
“I’m disappointed that you as Secretary of State, after being chairman of this committee, after espousing the views that you’ve espoused in the past, our of convenience, and parsing legal words, would make the statement you just made,” Corker said.
Secretary Kerry took umbrage, of course, as did Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Said Senator Boxer, a delicate flower she:
I think it is shocking and a sad state of affairs that we heard just now, such angry comments aimed at you, Mr. Secretary, and through you, at our president instead of at ISIS, a savage group who decapitated two Americans and have warned, and I quote, that their thirst for more American blood is right out there.
“I think it’s shocking. I’m actually shaking and trembling. This is not the time to show anger at the people who are working night and day, whether you agree with them or not, to protect our people.”
But almost eight years ago, in January of 2007 when Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice appeared before the same Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Boxer had a decidedly different view of what was “shocking” behavior on the part of a senator questioning a sitting Secretary of State. Check out the video below, less than two minutes long.
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For my money, implying that Secretary Rice could not empathize with the families of soldiers who were killed or wounded on the battlefield (paying the price) because she has no children of her own was inexcusably rude and insulting, far worse than anything Senator Bob Corker said to Secretary John Kerry.