Competence No Requirement

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ignoring precedent and, frankly, common sense, appears to have injected a new confirmation hurdle for nominees to top federal jobs.

The committee on Tuesday took up the nomination of the undersecretary of state for management, Henrietta H. Fore, to be administrator of the Agency for International Development.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told his colleagues that he opposed her as a result of his investigation into the recent "passport fiasco," a mess for which State's consular affairs chief, Maura Harty, took "full responsibility." Fore was Harty's boss.

When Fore's nomination came up, Nelson said, he asked her privately if she accepted any responsibility for the huge delays in issuing passports. "She would not answer the question." Did the same at her confirmation hearing, Nelson said.

"Well, I don't like that," he said, adding that he was going to put a hold on the nomination but that he was going to give her a chance to "put into writing what I had requested."

This apparently caused a mini-panic at State.

"No less than" Deputy Secretary John Negroponte called Nelson Friday night "while I was in an airboat with Barbara [Boxer] in the Everglades," Nelson said.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice called him Monday.

Nelson got his letter from Fore, but he wasn't satisfied. "She says, 'yes,' period," he said. "Then . . . she goes on with a lot of the language, 'Well, we all share responsibility.' "

Wasn't enough for Nelson, who said Harty had been "instructed . . . to take the fall." He lifted his hold but said he would vote "no."

Then Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said he would . .

"support Nelson's comments. . . . If we're seen as promoting incompetence, I think it looks bad on all of us. So, in the spirit of bipartisanship, Bill, I support you."

Adapted from a bit by Al Kamen in The Washington Post on Friday, September 14, 2007.