Associated Press: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Defends Shaheen on Foreign Policy

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By Holly Ramer

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday that Republican Senate hopeful Scott Brown is "dead wrong" in suggesting that Democrat Jeanne Shaheen is confused about national security threats.

Brown, a former Massachusetts senator now challenging Shaheen in New Hampshire, has been calling Shaheen naive and confused on foreign policy and pointing out that she missed numerous Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, including one about the emerging threat by the Islamic State group last year. On Thursday, former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., called Shaheen's absences "an astonishing case of dereliction of duty."

"In any business, Senator Shaheen would be fired for absenteeism. In the military, she would be charged with abandoning her post. We need a Senator who will take national security and secure borders seriously," he said.

Albright, in a phone interview with The Associated Press, said Brown doesn't know how much work Shaheen has done to understand the threats facing the United States and how carefully she has followed the issue.

"The bottom line is not everything happens in those hearings. They are obviously important, but there are many, many things that show the role of a senator in terms of learning what the facts are and keeping up to date on it. And I have absolutely no doubt that Sen. Shaheen has been very aware of what is going on with the ISIS issue and on threats generally," she said. "What she's not doing is turning it into scaring everybody to death. What's very troubling is the idea of using what is a genuine problem … and making this a political issue that uses the fear factor."

Brown's latest television ad includes footage of a lone militant walking across a barren land with the black banner of the Islamic State group. Brown says such radical terrorists are "threatening to cause the collapse of our country," and argues that the key to stopping them is securing the U.S. border.

Albright said she disagrees with Brown's approach.

"I'm very concerned about how we look at the whole terrorist issue. It is very serious, but I don't think the right approach is to scare everyone to such a point where we're not thinking about it wisely, where it affects how we look at immigration policy and how we treat American citizens," she said. "I think we have to be really careful. Hysteria doesn't get you very far."

Albright, who served under President Bill Clinton and was the first female secretary of state, called Shaheen "one of the most important members of the Senate" but said she had no impression of Brown from his time in Washington.

"I could never remember what state he was really from," she said.

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