Off to Latin America she goes

Monday's NYT has a set-up piece on Hillary Clinton's Latin America trip this week, written by Ginger Thompson and Alexei Barrionuevo. They write:

And while the Obama administration’s leading Latin America appointments were delayed by Washington power struggles, Europe’s political influence has filled the void.

Look, I realize it would take up space in the paper to get into the history of that, some of which the Times covered at the time. But it strikes me that "Senate republicans" would have been fewer characters, and more informative, than "Washington power struggles".