Meet PJ Crowley’s Replacement
Posted: May 17, 2011 Filed under: Foreign Affairs | Tags: P.J. Crowley, Victoria Nuland 25 Comments
Victoria "Toria" Nuland. Click to go to FP.com
FP/The Cable’s Josh Rogin reports:
The Cable has confirmed that career Foreign Service officer Victoria “Toria” Nuland will soon be named as the State Department’s top spokesperson, the latest in a string of promotions for senior career officers in Foggy Bottom.
Nuland’s job will somewhat different than her predecessor P.J. Crowley, who resigned after making off-message comments criticizing the Defense Department’s treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning. Unlike Crowley, Nuland will not be dual-hatted as assistant secretary of State for Public Affairs. Former National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer will be officially named to that job soon, a State Department official confirmed.
Nuland is currently the Special Envoy for the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. From her bio on the State Department website:
Ambassador Victoria Nuland was named Special Envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in February 2010. She previously served on the faculty of the National War College (2008-2009).
She was the 18th United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008. As NATO Ambassador, she focused heavily on strengthening Allied support for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, on NATO-Russia issues, and on the Alliance’s global partnerships and continued enlargement.
A career Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Nuland was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President from 2003-2005, and the U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO from 2000- 2003. From 1997-1999, she was Deputy Director for former Soviet Union affairs at the Department of State, with primary responsibility for U.S. policy towards Russia and the Caucasus countries. She has also spent two years at the Council on Foreign Relations as a “Next Generation” Fellow looking at the effects of anti-Americanism in 1999-2000, and as a State Department Fellow in 1996-1997, when she directed a CFR task force on “Russia, its Neighbors and an Expanding NATO.”
“Toria is very skilled and talented and will do very well here,” one denizen of the State Department’s “executive level” seventh floor said, noting that given Nuland’s ties to GOP circles – her husband is Brookings foreign policy scholar and Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan, and she previously served as an adviser to Cheney — “who better…to aggressively defend the Administration’s foreign policy?”
That paragraph struck me as very telling, especially since this is the person the Obama Administration is replacing PJ Crowley with.
Just as an aside, Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol were co-founders of the now defunct neocon think tank PNAC, which BTW has morphed into the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Nuland herself was one of Cheney’s top policy advisors.
I think the noises out of the seventh floor touting all this GOP cred is interesting given the clueless class and their recent and utterly baffling hope that Obama will have incentive to move left now that he’s captured Osama. See tristero’s reaction to OBL’s death:
If ever there was a time that Obama could be persuaded to pursue even a moderately liberal agenda – as opposed to a (roughly) centrist/right one – that time is now.
More on Nuland from the FP/Rogin link that I started out with:
During the first term of Bill Clinton‘s administration, she was chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and then moved on to serve as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.
In an interview, Talbott, now president of the Brookings Institution, praised Nuland as a consummate professional who proved that Foreign Service officers could be trusted to put professionalism over politics.
Talbott says Nuland is dedicated to whatever Administration she works for. Being as dedicated to Bush and then to Obama as she was to Clinton is not something I really consider a selling point:
“Her appointment demonstrates that Secretary Clinton has, quite rightly, an extremely high estimation of the value and confidence in the Foreign Service,” Talbott said, “The more use that’s made of the foreign policy civil service and the Foreign Service, the better.”
He noted Nuland’s public role as the U.S. envoy to NATO as evidence she can handle the spotlight and highlighted her roles across several administrations as evidence of her apolitical nature.
“She has a high degree of self confidence and an absolute dedication to working for the administration she is working for, whatever administration that is,” Talbot said.
Perhaps Nuland is more of an independent career foreign servant than an ideological type, but this appointment, combined with the trumpeting of Nuland’s GOP ties to say “who better to aggressively defend the Administration’s foreign policy” strikes me as part of a pattern of the Administration playing to the the right-wing after “Obama killed Osama” was supposed to have given Obama the national security trump card and assorted Democrats and progressives spoke of it as if this would give Democrats/progressives the national security trump card.
As usual, I think the left made the mistake of confusing victories and trump cards for Obama as victories and trump cards for the left. I don’t know how they expected Obama to move to the left on anything, when it seemed plain as day to me that he had all the more incentive to move to the right on everything from national security and foreign policy to drill, baby, drill.
Any thoughts?
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Sky Dancing 
Cornel West is getting backlash for daring to make a little noise on puny little truthdig via the Hedges’ article…
This is basically what Obamaphiles are surmising:
Ta-Nehisi Coates, via The Atlantic:
If President Obama conducted his presidency no differently, but kept the confidence of Dr. West–or Michael Eric Dyson or Tavis Smiley for that matter…
How would he “keep the confidence” of these people, who are (FINALLY) objecting to his policies, without changing his policies?
[facepalm]
the Obamaphiles have rationalized that Tavis, Smiley, and Dyson want attention/invitations and are feeling ignored now. But, Tavis has been critical of Obama and vocal about it all along… and West has been criticizing Obama’s policies for over a year.
no kidding! If I were some of these guys I would truly be insulted for having some one call me that shallow. Probably a projection … some people would sell out for access but that doesn’t mean every one will …
I can’t stand Coates. He doesn’t know what it means to help the poor an powerless first? What an ass. But I’m just now reading the Hedges piece on Cornell West. I’m sorry to say it seems a bit whiny to me. If I could see what Obama was, why couldn’t he?
Plenty of black people were saying Obama didn’t share the African-American experience back in late 2007.
It’s also annoying that he blames Obama’s conservatism on Emanual, who tried to get Obama to put jobs first before health care. I get sick of the Clinton slams too.
West should get together with other AA’s who have waked up and DO something.
I didn’t like the Hedges piece. I think it was strange. I’ve heard West criticize Obama before this…it was different.
This was from LAST year, March2010:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/18082/martin-luther-king-vs-barack-obamawatch-pbs-wednesday-night-to-see-the-difference
He’s been criticizing him since he appointed Larry Summers, TImothy Geithner, and Gates which is basically before the inauguration. I’m not sure why this piece got so much attention. It must’ve hit home with some one or the reelection trolls are on the march!
I agree there, but I think that a lot of that was Hedges himself. I’ve just gotten used to the Clinton slams where both Hedges and West are concerned.
It sounds like Emanual wasn’t all that from what I can take away from the health care debate. I also think that’s why he quit to run for Chicago mayor. It’s been Obama the entire time. He’s a basically a neocon.
Yes, there were things in the article that troubled me about West. First, he was personally rebuffed by the new savior. And his feelings were hurt, poor baby. Oh please. Second, he throws in a gratuitous antisemitic dig. Completely unacceptable – and dishonest, since Obama is the one with the top title. (And doesn’t it seem awfully late in the day to be badmouthing Clinton? Really. Enough already.)
Most important to me, though, it seems West backed Obama simply because Obama was black (or half-black). And West pinned his hopes (hopes?) on the black man – that is, the man with no record of achievement at all. That is so anti-intellectual it makes my head spin.
Better late than never, I guess, but it remains to be seen if West will be brought back into the fold with a little of brother Obama’s love. I do think Obama is making a few halfhearted and phony efforts to bring women back into the fold (Nuland is married to neo-con Robert Kagan? Wow, now there’s a raging liberal). To me, nothing but transparently pandering for votes. So maybe West will get a little pat on the head and he’ll get his hopes up again.
I do hope he doesn’t get his feelings hurt again.
Oh Kat, I don’t think Rahm was good in HCR, but I just don’t think Obama’s HCR sucked bc of Rahm.
I think the fate of HCR was sealed on May 31, 2008.
This was one of the co-chairs of the DNC Rules and Bylaws, grandson of FDR, no less… from wikipedia…
I’m not saying Rahm’s a saint … I think he’s more of a scapegoat than he should be though … I don’t think Obama did anything he didn’t want to do frankly.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by “he wasn’t all that in HCR.” I thought you were saying he contributed to Obama’s HCR being bad. I don’t really think he did. I’m not a fan of Rahm, but I agree Rahm was used to shield Obama from scrutiny from the base. Instead the base was focused on Rahm saying effing retard instead of Obama pushing bad policies. Again, a lot of that Rahm bashing was from Hedges himself though.
Ding Ding….I think we have a winner.
Coates seems to have something dribbling down his chin… he should wiipe it off.
*snorts* My, my how the tune has changed. I fondly remember the days when it was imperative to sacrifice all domestic policy to the amazing departure we were about to embark upon in the foreign sphere.
I know, right… if Obama and Hillary were both just running to be the head of the American killing machine, then why all the drama from 2003-2008? Why all the daily tirades against Hillary the warmonger? Why all the patronizing “she only has herself to blame, if she hadn’t voted for the war, she’d be the nominee” comments to this day?
And why the hell couldn’t we use our basic common sense to conclude that if, as we all (well, mostly) acknowledged, he was running to the right on domestic policy, it was probably fairly implausible that he would somehow fulfill our most cherished foreign policy fantasies? Yes, there have been liberal hawks and right-wing isolationists, but is this country exactly crawling with right-wing doves? How likely is that?
Well they didn’t give him the Nobelol for nothing!
2012 infotainment: Ex-Obama supporter Cindy Crawford now supports Mitt Romney…
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1105/crawford_flipflops_for_romney.html
Obama appears to be making some token gestures towards women…first putting Debbie Wasserman-Schulz in charge of the DNC, now replacing PJ Crowley with a woman.
What this says to me is that he knows he is on shaky ground with women in 2012. So, he’s not completely clueless about it…now if pro-choice orgs would only seize this opportunity to pressure him into using his bully pulpit (and veto pen) vis-a-vis the war on women…
I can’t see that happening… I think pro-choice orgs are too busy being dumbfounded and shocked (or rather professing to be) by the Republicans to hold Obama accountable.
Debbie Wasserman’s been in line for a move up the Dem leadership ladder for awhile if you ask me…she’s a really good Dem attack dog and fundraiser. So I don’t know how much of that is Obama truly betraying a sign of being worried or just his usual stockpiling of women as talking points (Sonia, Elena, Hillary, Michelle, Lilly Ledbetter…etc.)
Wonk, I think it’s a bit of both, Obama worried, and DNC worried.
It’s interesting, bc according to this bit (propaganda?) from Politico, Obama’s lost his biggest Dem woman cheerleader… Claire McCaskill…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55024.html
Wonk, I can’t see it happening either (I can’t help wishing it would, though). I agree with Fannie that it is a little of both.