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It’s Kyl

Looks like my question has been answered:

The U.S. State Department is trying to persuade a senior Republican senator to lift a hold on the confirmation of Sung Kim, the nominee to become a new ambassador to South Korea, congressional sources said Monday.

Jon Kyl (R-AZ), assistant minority leader in the Senate, has been blocking the confirmation process for more than a month, according to the sources. He is known as a staunch conservative on foreign policy. [….]

“Sen. Kyl seems to be placing a hold on Kim’s confirmation due to the Obama administration’s North Korea policy, but he has not clarified the reason,” a source said, requesting anonymity. [Korea Times]

Apparently, the Senate custom is that hold letters are, at least initially, anonymous, and therefore unexplained.

I’m just glad to see that someone in the Senate is still looking over the State Department’s shoulder, now that Sam Brownback has gone back to Kansas.

8 Responses

  1. Kyl doesn’t like the best North Korea policy he’s ever seen, and Joshua’s glad he’s looking over the State Department’s shoulder.

  2. Sung Kim, on the other hand, was Chris Hill’s right hand when they gave us the worst North Korea policy we’ve ever seen. Let’s not confuse the currently not-bad North Korea policy with the one that Sung Kim and Wendy Sherman would like.

  3. If the Korea Times story is wrong, and Kyl objects not to Obama’s policy but to Sung Kim’s record, he’d be doing a public service if he’d state his objections.

  4. My understanding is that Kyl took this step to extract guarantees that Sung Kim will not go back to appeasement of NK.

  6. I apologize in advance for throwing out this unpolished line of inquiry, but is there even the tiniest possibility that the real driver of Sung Kim’s holdup is the fact that he was born in the country where he is going to represent the United States of America?

    I mean, it would hardly be a surprise if the notion that a Korean-born American might kinda sorta sometimes come down on the side of Korea in ROK-US negotiations crossed the minds of a few people in the party where half its members are convinced the president was secretly born outside the USA.

    Asking, not saying. Senator Kyl may have had no such thoughts and I don’t want to say that he did if there is no such evidence.

  7. Glans: Talk among NK-watchers in Washington and Kyl’s and other hawks’ previous stated opposition to things like giving aid to NK. Sung Kim is seen as having been Chris Hill’s right-hand man back in the 6-party days.