"The success of the Bush-Cheney administration will depend on the quality appointees we choose to join us to lead this nation in the years ahead. I will look for people who are willing to work hard to do what is best for America, who examine the facts and do what is right whether or not it is popular. I will look for people from across the country and from every walk of life. I welcome all who are ready for this great challenge to apply."
President George W. Bush, "Appointments," White House Website
A few weeks ago, Diplopundit – who does a nice job of tracking developments at the US State Department – provided a comment-free but nevertheless eloquent list (actually, two lists) of recent Bush nominees for European ambassadorial posts. What, you might ask, is the President doing, sending off to Congress the names of individuals who will have to – in less than six months – submit their resignations to a new president, whether he is Obama or McCain?
Strange as it seems, this is pretty standard presidential practice, lame duck or not. For the professionals among them, Foreign Service Officers who are ambassadors have tours of duty, though more elastic (“at the pleasure of the President”) than your standard two or three year tour for regular FS staff. For the amateurs – that is, the political appointees – those who gave generously in the 2000 campaign had to make way for those who gave even more generously in the 2004 election. As Pat Kushlis recently noted in WhirledView, some European capitals have seen upwards of five different Bush appointees (in Helsinki, all but one a political crony/donor) in the last 7 1/2 years. Finnish heads must be spinning.
For those Pioneers and Rangers (“bundling” respectively in excess of $100,000 or $200,000 in campaign contributions), no need to go through the tiresome procedures outlined on the White House website: “Fill out the application form provided below and submit it electronically...” We know who you are, Jack (it’s amazing that Abramoff never got his ambassadorship, before he was found out carrying his lobbying a mite too far). And how about “Kenny Boy” Lay, Bush’s biggest 2000 donor? He should have put in for Ambassador to the Bahamas before Enron went down in flames.
In Diplopundit’s lists of recent ambassadorial nominees, it’s fun to play “spot the professional” (actually Diplopundit tells us who the Foreign Service Officers are in the second post). Click on the PDF links to read their Congressional testimony. To a person, the FSOs display in depth knowledge of the country in which they hope to represent the United States. They stress the country, its regional context, its relations with the US – but are almost mum about their personal qualifications; they appear to take those as understood. The amateurs – sorry, the political appointees – grasp for references to overseas trips taken decades ago, company affiliates in said country, etc. – but slaver at the chance to praise the President for having the sense to nominate them, given their eminent qualifications...
Early in the George W. Bush Administration, I was the Chargé d’Affaires or acting American ambassador in a small European country. Attending a conference of American ambassadors to European countries who are members of NATO and the EU, I was one of a handful of career FSOs present. The political appointees - the host and a large majority of the ambassadors to “nice” countries - knew why they were there. “To the man who put us all here, President George W. Bush,” said our host as he raised his glass. Since I wasn’t there thanks to him, but was only a lucky “holdover” while the Pioneer Placement Program was sending a happy lobbyist my way, I sheepishly raised my glass out of habit.
Lobbyists, pharmaceutical executives, Bush cousins and family retainers – those are the American ambassadors in the image of their President who Ambassador Barbara Bodine (a retired FSO who served her entire career in un-fun places in the Middle East; thanks to FS blogger LifeAfterJerusalem for pointing her out) had in mind when she lambasted the “selling of ambassadorships” in Politico.
Without parallel in the industrialized world, the United States continues to raffle off to well-heeled political donors ambassadorships to many of our most strategically important allies, as well as to some of the cushiest spots on earth. The U.S. ended the sale of military commissions over 100 years ago; it is inconceivable today that we would sell off military commands. We should not sell off diplomatic commands — the last vestige of the 19th-century spoils system.
Indeed. Now the question is, what would an Obama or a McCain Administration do? McCain, despite his “Maverick” press persona, strikes me as a pretty standard-issue Republican of the kind that would not think twice about appointing ‘ole buddies to choice spots like Paris, Rome, or London.
But it is Barack Obama, the change agent, who will have to prove whether he can keep his word. Long ago in the Democratic primary campaign, he pledged not to take lobbyist contributions. Fine, that would appear to rule out distributing ambassadorships to that same category. As Barbara Bodine points out, there are certainly exceptional cases where a political appointee is at least as qualified as a career professional. Lifelong Japan expert Edwin O. Reischauer to Tokyo in the Sixties, or my old boss at NATO in the Nineties, national security expert Robert E. Hunter – there will always be slots for just the right non-career appointee. But making a habit out of it? Asks Bodine:
How do you explain to a student or any aspirant to the Foreign Service that, while the U.S. government expects that level of commitment, no matter how well and how long you serve, it is likely that a political donor with little relevant experience will end up with the top job of your profession?
Senator Obama has an excellent “stable” of foreign policy advisors, and I have no doubt that several of them will fill policy positions in a future Obama administration. But please try to hold the line at the US border, Senator Obama. Kenya, Indonesia, but also Germany and Ireland, deserve professionals. Change is due in a number of areas, after the excesses of the past eight years. How about professional American ambassadors – as the rule for Obama Administration envoys – for a change?
