The Senate confirmed Gov. Paul Cellucci’s nomination for U.S. ambassador to Canada yesterday, but not before some senators could stir up some controversy. These senators attempted to delay Cellucci’s full-Senate hearing. The attempted delay was due solely to the partisanship of the most conservative members of the Senate, including Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). Helms was not at the Senate Foreign Relations hearing at which Cellucci was approved despite being the committee chairman. He has joined forces with other right-wingers to protest Cellucci’s alleged “anti-family” beliefs.
They claimed Cellucci’s infusion of more than $1 million into the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and his presence at an event sponsored by Planned Parenthood have proven that he promotes acceptance of homosexuality and promiscuity as normal behavior.
Regardless of Cellucci’s personal beliefs on these subjects, the protests of Helms and his colleagues are absurd. The debate over Cellucci’s actions is completely irrelevant given the scope of his new job as ambassador to Canada. When the Senate questioned Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft’s personal politics in January and did so fairly because his views could affect the way he performs his duties of upholding U.S. law. However, in the case of the Bay State governor, Helms and company have focused on an issue which is in no way related to the position of U.S. ambassador to Canada. They simply targeted a minute aspect of Cellucci’s record as governor because his beliefs do not align with the views of far-right senators like Helms.
This is not the first time Helms has tried to prevent someone from becoming an ambassador. In 1997, he successfully blocked a bid by former state Gov. William Weld to become ambassador to Mexico. Maybe Helms has something against Massachusetts governors. Or he saw Cellucci’s hearings as a vehicle to push his own social conservative ideas.
Helms chose the wrong arena. The fact of the matter is Cellucci’s politics do not disqualify him from being the U.S. ambassador to Canada and the fact that he doesn’t lean quite as far to the right as Helms and his supporters is no reason to deny him this new post. The rest of the Senate should be applauded for ignoring Helms’ aimless protests.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
