[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 113 (Thursday, August 1, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6147-S6149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                            Power Nomination

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, let me express my thanks to Senator 
Sanders for his willingness to yield to me and give me this time.
  I am here very briefly to commend Samantha Power to the entire Senate 
as President Obama's nominee to be the U.N. ambassador representing the 
United States.
  I do so proudly because of the great work she has done against 
genocide and atrocities around the world, because she has been an 
outspoken leader in terms of doing what is right, and I think she has 
the courage to represent our country on the Security Council better 
than anyone I know.
  I got to know Samantha Power by reading her book, ``A Problem from 
Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.'' It is the story about Rwanda 
and the genocide where 1 million people died while the rest of the 
world turned and looked away, and her calling on all people of 
democracies and freedom around the world to not let that happen again.

[[Page S6149]]

  When she came to the White House, she created the Commission on 
Atrocities for President Obama to focus on that and see to it that it 
didn't happen again. It was through her leadership that she forced 
President Obama and the administration to engage in Libya and end what 
would have been a genocide in Libya by Muammar Qadhafi.
  She is smart, she is intelligent, she is tough, and she has a Georgia 
tie of which I am very proud. She graduated from a high school in 
DeKalb County, GA, in the 1980s called Lakeside High School. She did an 
internship between her first and second year at Yale University in 
Atlanta, GA, for a sports broadcaster on a sports station in the city. 
He was asked a few days after she left to give some description of what 
kind of person Samantha Power was, and I want to read that quote 
because it reflects the kind of person we want representing us as an 
ambassador at the U.N. He said:

       Oh, my God, was she bright. Acerbic, lightening-witted, and 
     the depth of the Mariana Trench.

  That is a quote from Jeff Hullinger, the first person she worked for 
in 1988.
  Samantha Power is the right person, at the right time, to represent 
the right country in the U.N. on the Security Council. I commend her to 
the Senate and hope she receives a unanimous vote.
  I yield back the remainder of my time and thank the Senator from 
Vermont.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.