Ambassadorships for sale? Obama donors get cushy diplomatic gigs

thisnumbersdisconnected · Feb 10, 2014

Fox News: Obama far outpaces predecessors in appointing donors to foreign posts

President Obama has taken the art of naming donors and other politically connected chums as ambassadors to a new level, despite pledging in 2008 to shake up Washington's back-scratching ways.

A string of gaffes by some of his recent nominees has thrust the Washington practice of appointing donors to foreign posts back into the spotlight. The administration faced difficult questions from the press last week, for instance, after Obama's nominee to Argentina admitted he'd never been there.

But a look back at how Obama's appointments stack up to those of his predecessors shows it's not just business as usual -- if anything, the current president is using diplomatic gigs to reward bundlers and contributors seemingly more than ever.

The American Foreign Service Association, which tracks ambassadorial appointments, [URL="http://www.afsa.org/secondterm.aspx]has found that in Obama's second term, more than 53 percent of these appointments were political[/URL]. Less than half have come from the career Foreign Service pool.
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Clinton and Bush made 28% and 30%, respectively, of their diplomatic nominations political rewards. So far, Obama is at 37%, and these people are idiots. I loved this exchange between Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and ambassador to Norway nominee George Tsunis, a hotel chain owner who gave undisclosed fortunes the the Great Pretender.

McCain asked Tsunis about Norway’s anti-immigration party, the Progress Party:

Tsunis: Thank you, Senator. It’s a very seminal question. Generally Norway has, and is very proud of, being a very open, transparent, democratic parliamentary government. One of the by- products of being such an open society and placing such a value on free speech is that you get some fringe elements that have a microphone, that spew their hatred. And although I will tell you Norway has been very quick to denounce them, we’re going to continue to work with Norway to make sure –

McCain: The government has denounced them? The coalition government — they’re part of the coalition of the government.

Tsunis: Well, I would say — you know, what? I stand — I stand corrected.

McCain: I doubt seriously if they–

Tsunis: The — I stand corrected and would like to leave my answer at they are — it’s a very, very open society and that most Norwegians — the overwhelming amount of Norwegians and the overwhelming amount of people in parliament don’t feel the same way.

McCain (voice dripping with sarcasm): I have no more questions for this incredibly, highly qualified group of nominees.
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Colleen Bell, nominee to China, admitted "I'm no real expert on China." McCain asked her what she would do differently than her predecessor, who has had rocky relations with the Chinese government. She obviously wasn't aware that was the case, or how those relations soured, and couldn't answer the question, though she tried five times, without actually saying anything.

Argentine nominee Noah Bryson Mamet admitted he has "extensively traveled the world" but somehow never got around to going to Argentina. Jokes, every solitary one of them. And this idiot Senate will confirm them, because the Marxists are in the majority.

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Ambassadorships for sale? Obama donors get cushy diplomatic gigs

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