The US Senate voted to confirm Samantha Power as President Barack Obama’s next ambassador to the United Nations yesterday.
As voting continued, more than 70 of the 100 senators had voted in favour of Power, a former White House national security staffer and former journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book A Problem from Hell, a study of US failure to prevent genocide.
Ms Power, who needed only 51 votes to be approved, had been expected to easily win the Senate’s approval after its foreign relations committee overwhelmingly backed her nomination earlier this month.
She replaces Susan Rice, the subject of fierce criticism from Republicans for her role in the Obama administration‘s communications about attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11th, 2012, in which the US ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
Mr Obama named Ms Rice in June as his national security adviser, a position that is not subject to Senate confirmation.
“As a long-time champion of human rights and dignity, she will be a fierce advocate for universal rights, fundamental freedoms and US national interests,” Mr Obama said of Ms Power in a statement.
Ms Power (42) had faced some pointed questioning during her confirmation hearing over statements in interviews including seeming to suggest in 2002 that the US Army might be needed to police the Middle East conflict if either Israel or the Palestinians were to move toward genocide.
However, she has disassociated herself many times from that comment.