Political Quotes

“earlier this week, the Committee on Armed Services favorably reported the nomination of Mr. Dorrance Smith to the full Senate. Mr. Smith is an experienced and highly accomplished television executive, who has been nominated to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. I have a copy of Mr. Smith's biography, and I would note that he is a four-time Emmy award winning television producer who spent 9 months in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 where he served as Senior Media Advisor to Ambassador Paul Bremer. I have met with Mr. Smith on several occasions. I believe him to be highly qualified, and I fully support his nomination. At a full Armed Services Committee hearing on October 25, 2005, and later, at an executive session of the Armed Services Committee on December 13, at which Mr. Smith was present, he fully and respectfully answered all questions posed to him. Many questions focused on an op ed article he wrote as a private citizen that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on April 25, 2005. In this article, based on his ``in the trenches'' experience as Ambassador Bremer's senior media advisor in Baghdad, Mr. Smith questioned the practice relied on by major media outlets in the United States of airing video of insurgent attacks supplied by the Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera. I am satisfied with Mr. Smith's responses. I would note that no major media outlet, except Al Jazeera, expressed any concern about Mr. Smith's op ed.…”