The Obama Administration is catching bipartisan criticism over its ambassador nominees. Several appeared before Congress last week, and displayed some scary levels of ignorance about the nations to which they would be representing America. For instance, Obama’s pick for ambassador to Hungary is the producer of the soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful.” And like his picks for ambassadors to Argentina and Norway, she’s never even visited there. His nominee for ambassador to Norway knew so little that some critics suggested he hadn’t even read Norway’s Wikipedia page. So what are these people’s qualifications? They’re major bundlers of cash for Obama’s political campaigns. This is being treated as a scandal, but there’s nothing much new about it. Presidents have long rewarded big supporters with plum jobs as ambassadors to all those nations Americans actually want to visit. And to be honest, you almost have to appoint someone wealthy because anyone who isn’t rich couldn’t afford an ambassador’s lifestyle. Besides, they’ll learn about the nations when they get there, and there’s not much chance that anything they do will make Norway or Argentina declare war on us. The most troubling part of the story is how much the practice of appointing political donors is growing. 26 percent of Clinton’s ambassadors were financial supporters. 30 percent of Bush’s were, and now, 37 percent of Obama’s are. I have a feeling that 100 percent would be, but nobody’s going to donate big money for the honor of being ambassador to Libya.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:30:00 +0000
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