The article says:
“Freeman has a formidable resume of foreign policy positions that include U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia under George H.W. Bush and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs — a position that earned him public service awards for his role in creating a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system. Freeman also served as Richard Nixon’s chief translator in China in 1972.”
Maybe the Congressmorons’ objection is that he is too smart.
The rest of the article has other information that puts the quote you cited into question:
“— Freeman’s role as president of the Middle East Policy Council, a think tank they say received funding from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Fuad A. Rihani, a consultant for the bin Ladin family’s Saudi BinLadin Group, also sits on the group’s board of directors — another trouble spot for Freeman’s critics. And they complained the council did not disclose its donors.
— Freeman’s role on a board for the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, owned by China, and that company’s reportedly $16 billion agreement with Iran to develop a gas field in the Middle Eastern country.”
Also:
“Also, The Weekly Standard recently posted a 2006 e-mail from Freeman to a listserv in which he said the Chinese government was “overly cautious” in its effort to “intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud” during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.”
He does fit the Obama model of supressing all dissent.