WASHINGTON — Samantha Power, President Barack Obama’s controversial nominee to represent the U.S. at the United Nations, was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday by an 81-10 vote to succeed Susan Rice at the critical diplomatic post.
The nomination drew bipartisan support after a very short debate. Power garnered support from prominent Republican senators, including John McCain of Arizona, and Bob Corker, of Tennessee, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Obama nominated Irish-born Power, a former member of his administration’s National Security Council, to the post of Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations on June 5.
Power had earlier stirred up controversies for her alleged anti-Israel stance and her interventionist approach to dealing with humanitarian crises. She was in the forefront of the camp of White House advisors who pushed for military intervention in Libya.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said during Senate floor debate that the controversies are a sign that “she must be doing something right.” He expressed confidence in Power’s ability to carry the torch of the ideals that the United Nations was founded on after World War 11.
“No one can question her credentials, her years of experience and her willingness to speak her mind,” Menendez said.
But at a Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on July 17, Power presented a diplomatic front. Often described as blunt and outspoken, she reined in her provocative opinions and stuck to a safe middle path when fielding questions from senators.
She dissociated herself from her less popular statements in the past and offered platitudes such as, “I believe America is the greatest country” when fielding senators’ questions. That earned her a comment from Sen. Rand Paul that her responses were “non-response responses.”
Menendez defended Power on the floor, Thursday. “[Her answer] was her way of rejecting any characterization of any statements she made in the past.”
Power had also come under fire from pro-Israel activists for her remark in 2002 when she said in an interview that the U.S. might have to deploy a “mammoth protection force” to invest in a new Palestinian state.
At her July confirmation hearing, she dismissed that line as a “remarkably incoherent response to a question I should have never answered.”
The 18-member committee cleared her nomination for a vote by the full Senate with an overwhelming 16 votes.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who voted against Power on Thursday, said that her answers to his questions were unsatisfactory.
“She failed to distance herself from these statements at the hearing and offered insufficient explanation, leaving me with serious concerns about some of her views,” Rubio said in a news release following his negative vote.
“[U.N.] has never been, and it is not now, a substitute for strong American leadership,” Rubio said speaking against Power’s nomination on the Senate floor.
In July, Rubio introduced a bill to curb U.S. spending at the U.N., along with another measure that would tighten the purse strings on U.S. foreign aid. Among other things, these bills seek to preserve the influence the U.S. has at the UN while increasing accountability for American money going to the world body in New York.
“You cannot achieve accountability in the United Nations if there is no ambassador to represent the United States,” Menendez countered on Thursday. “We cannot lead if we do not have a United States ambassador raising their voice and their vote on critical issues.”
At her hearing, Power criticized the U.N. Security Council for its paralysis in taking action in Syria. She acknowledged that it was unlikely that the Security Council would approve a military intervention in the near future.
If confirmed, however, Power said she would advocate a multi-faceted approach designed to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
“When the Assad regime falls and it will fall, the individuals responsible for these atrocities will be held accountable,” she promised.
Power, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” has taught foreign policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Before being named to the National Security Council, she was a special assistant to Obama.
Following Susan Rice and the acting ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, Power will be the third woman to serve as U.S. envoy to the U.N. during Obama’s presidency.