WASHINGTON — Sen. John Kerry, President Obama's nominee for secretary of state, said Thursday that the United States must get its fiscal house in order to lead worldwide, as lawmakers signaled his confirmation was a foregone conclusion.
"More than ever, foreign policy is economic policy," Kerry said in prepared testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
It was an odd juxtaposition. Kerry has served on the committee during his entire 28 years in the Senate and has chaired the panel for the last four. On Thursday, he was to sit at the witness table, facing his colleagues and friends.
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Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), President Obama's nominee for Secretary of State, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations committee during his confirmation hearing today.
Obama chose Kerry to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who introduced the senator.
"John is the right choice," Clinton told the panel. "He will bring a record of leadership and service that is exemplary."
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ, the incoming chairman who presided over the confirmation hearing, noted that Kerry was the first senator on the panel in a century to ascend to the Cabinet post. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the panel's ranking Republican, told Kerry, "you've almost lived your entire life for this moment."
In his testimony, Kerry alluded to his controversial moment before the committee some 42 years ago when the decorated Vietnam veteran testified about his opposition to the war, and famously asked, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
"Today I can't help but recognize that the world itself then was in many ways simpler, divided as it was along bi-polar, Cold War antagonisms," Kerry said. "Today's world is more complicated than anything we have experienced — from the emergence of China, to the Arab Awakening: inextricably linked economic, health, environmental and demographic issues" as well as issues such as proliferation.
The five-term Massachusetts senator is widely expected to win overwhelming bipartisan support from his colleagues, and that notion was reinforced by the list of people who introduced him: Clinton, Massachusetts freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. John McCain.
McCain and Kerry are friends who have worked closely on national security issues. They're also decorated Vietnam War veterans and former presidential candidates who know the sharp sting of defeat.
The hearing is the first of three for Obama's national security nominees and the least controversial.
Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, nominated for defense secretary, will face tough questions about his past statements on Israel, Iran, nuclear weapons and defense spending at his confirmation hearing next Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. John Brennan, the president's choice for CIA director, will be quizzed about White House national security leaks and the use of unmanned drones at his hearing next month.
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