The Cable

The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Names: Lots of people confirmed

Just before heading out of town, the Senate confirmed dozens of Obama administration appointments, including a host of ambassadors and several top officials at Foggy Bottom. Among the newly confirmed appointees are Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Mike Hammer, Assistant Secretary of State for ...

Just before heading out of town, the Senate confirmed dozens of Obama administration appointments, including a host of ambassadors and several top officials at Foggy Bottom.

Among the newly confirmed appointees are Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Mike Hammer, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Claire Richard, Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations Frederick Barton, and Director General of the Foreign Service Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

The Senate also confirmed new U.S. ambassadors to the Togolese Republic, Barbados, Cambodia, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Haiti, India, Kosovo, Latvia, Libya, Malta, Nicaragua, Panama, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

Other notable administration officials confirmed include Rebecca Blank as deputy secretary of commerce, Mary John Miller as undersecretary of the Treasury, Alastair Fitzpayne as deputy undersecretary of the Treasury, Elizabeth Cousens as U.S. representative on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, and Earl Gast as assistant administrator of USAID for Africa.

The Senate also passed by unanimous consent a group of foreign policy-related resolutions, including a resolution expressing support for the people of Tibet, a resolution condemning violence by the government of Syria against journalists, a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the NATO summit to be held in Chicago, and a resolution promoting peace and stability in Sudan.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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