Ambassadorships For Sale. Want One?
Ambassadorships for Sale
The Few, the Proud - the Maxed Out
Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris, but that still leaves London, Copenhagen, the Vatican, Tokyo and the Bahamas if you're a big Obama donor.
The president promised during his campaign to "have civil service whenever possible serve in these [diplomatic] posts." So far, though, it's proving "possible" for about 30% of these plums to go to well-heeled political supporters, which has been roughly the rule since JFK occupied the White House. Collectively, the nominees so far have raised over $1 million for Mr. Obama's campaign and inauguration.
Charles Rivkin, an entertainment mogul, has been named to Paris. Louis Susman, a retired investment banker, will get London. Music executive Nicole Avant will depart to the Bahamas. Don Gips, an exec with Level 3 Communications, is heading off to South Africa. John Roos, a Silicon Valley mergers and acquisitions lawyer, will settle in Japan.
Top non-political career officials have gotten important appointments to Brazil, Kosovo and Iraq -- it's true. But before condemning the amateurs-abroad program, check out a new book by Donald Blinken, a Wall Streeter sent to Hungary by President Clinton, along with his Hungarian-born wife. Mr. Blinken candidly describes how he "campaigned" for the job (and nearly lost it to a career civil servant), then had a highly successful run advising the former communist country on adapting to capitalism. Capping it off, he cajoled the wary Hungarians (who had just seen the Soviet Army withdraw) into serving as a base for US peacekeeping operations in Bosnia.
Mr. Blinken, an early fundraiser for Bill Clinton, writes a virtual manual on how to obtain an ambassadorship and then make the most of it to serve one's country. No doubt the occasional deep-pocketed dud is sent abroad simply because he wrote the requisite number of campaign checks. But it would be a mistake to assume the system used by every president for decades to staff our embassies doesn't have some virtues too.
-- Julie Steinberg and Holman Jenkins
The Few, the Proud - the Maxed Out
Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris, but that still leaves London, Copenhagen, the Vatican, Tokyo and the Bahamas if you're a big Obama donor.
The president promised during his campaign to "have civil service whenever possible serve in these [diplomatic] posts." So far, though, it's proving "possible" for about 30% of these plums to go to well-heeled political supporters, which has been roughly the rule since JFK occupied the White House. Collectively, the nominees so far have raised over $1 million for Mr. Obama's campaign and inauguration.
Charles Rivkin, an entertainment mogul, has been named to Paris. Louis Susman, a retired investment banker, will get London. Music executive Nicole Avant will depart to the Bahamas. Don Gips, an exec with Level 3 Communications, is heading off to South Africa. John Roos, a Silicon Valley mergers and acquisitions lawyer, will settle in Japan.
Top non-political career officials have gotten important appointments to Brazil, Kosovo and Iraq -- it's true. But before condemning the amateurs-abroad program, check out a new book by Donald Blinken, a Wall Streeter sent to Hungary by President Clinton, along with his Hungarian-born wife. Mr. Blinken candidly describes how he "campaigned" for the job (and nearly lost it to a career civil servant), then had a highly successful run advising the former communist country on adapting to capitalism. Capping it off, he cajoled the wary Hungarians (who had just seen the Soviet Army withdraw) into serving as a base for US peacekeeping operations in Bosnia.
Mr. Blinken, an early fundraiser for Bill Clinton, writes a virtual manual on how to obtain an ambassadorship and then make the most of it to serve one's country. No doubt the occasional deep-pocketed dud is sent abroad simply because he wrote the requisite number of campaign checks. But it would be a mistake to assume the system used by every president for decades to staff our embassies doesn't have some virtues too.
-- Julie Steinberg and Holman Jenkins
Labels: Keeping them honest, POTUS Barack Obama
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 1:16 PM
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