Mexico: Far-Right Fringe vs Clinton on Ambassador


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

                                       
    Copyright 1997 by Agence France-Presse
    Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:20:48 PDT

   WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (AFP) - The fight over the White House's
embattled nominee for ambassador to Mexico continued Sunday, as the
top Senate Republican said he urged President Bill Clinton to find a
new candidate.
   "The president ... needs to go ahead and find a way to move away
from this nominee and come up with another very qualified" person,
Senate majority leader Trent Lott told CBS television.
   Lott confirmed that he spoke to Clinton by telephone on
Saturday, telling CBS he pressed the president to nominate someone
else for the post, in place of Massachusetts' Republican former
governor, William Weld.
   An unusual public spat between the moderate Weld and
arch-conservative Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman Jesse Helms has led Helms to block even so much as a
confirmation hearing, effectively making a vote impossible.
   "This nomination is dead," Lott said, adding "the problem has
been the nominee himself," who "has behaved really outrageously," a
reference to Weld's sharp public criticisms of the cantankerous
Helms.
   Asked whether he would circumvent Helms' committee and bring the
nomination to a full Senate vote, which he has the power to do as
majority leader, Lott replied: "No, I'm not going to do that."
   Helms is not alone in his opposition to Weld, said Lott: "there
are a lot of Senators that indicated they would oppose this nominee
... and also I want to add my name to that list."
   Helms opposes Weld's defense of abortion rights and of medical
use of marijuana, and has said he would not push Mexico to get tough
on drug trafficking. Lott on Sunday echoed the North Carolina
Senator's focus on the drug issues.
   The former governor, meanwhile, dug in and continued what
increasingly appears to be a doomed fight for the post and against
Helms.
   "It's simply not proper for one senator behind closed doors to
decide he's not going to have a hearing," Weld said on NBC's Meet
the Press.
   He said support for his right to have a hearing in the Senate on
his nomination was strong around the country.
   "Views that are out there on Main Street have a way of seeping
into Washington, D.C." eventually, Weld said. "Senators are going to
hear from their constituents."
   Asked how long he would keep up the fight the former
Massachusetts governor said Clinton "feels very strongly about this,
I feel very strongly about this, and it's worth fighting for," Weld
said.
   "I felt a little bit ashamed to be an American citizen at that
hearing" Friday, Weld said after criticizing Helms for what Weld
called "despotic" denial of a hearing on his nomination as
ambassador of Mexico.
   Weld said his views in favor of medical use of marijuana as
governor had "absolutely nothing to do with Mexico" or his possible
ambassadorship, and that as a US envoy, he would defend only US
administration policies.

 
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