WASHINGTON — A day after President Obama announced his choices for some of the most coveted ambassador posts in the world, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about their credentials.
The new ambassador to France? What is his qualification? Does he speak French?
“He does,” Mr. Gibbs said.
And the new ambassador to Britain? What is his qualification? “He speaks English,” Mr. Gibbs said.
Mr. Gibbs was kidding, but mastery of English may be one of the most relevant items on the résumé of Louis B. Susman, the new ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. Mr. Susman, a retired investment banker, earned the London posting not through diplomatic service but by collecting big checks for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Charles H. Rivkin, an entertainment mogul who once headed the company that created the Muppets, is heading to Paris for the same reason.
The practice of sending top fund-raisers to prestigious embassies is nothing new for presidents of either party. But that is what makes Mr. Obama’s nominations so noteworthy. For a candidate who made grand promises to bring change to a capital where power and position are greased by money, the latest selections are a reminder that there are limits to just how much change the new president intends to bring.
For all his generalized message of change, Mr. Obama made clear when pressed even before becoming president that he would wall off the ambassadorial spoils system from his vows of reform. During a news conference 11 days before his inauguration, Mr. Obama said flatly that he would continue to tap political allies for at least some diplomatic posts.
“My general inclination is to have civil service wherever possible serve in these posts,” he said at the time. “Are there going to be political appointees to ambassadorships? There probably will be some.” He added that “it would be disingenuous for me to suggest that there are not going to be some.”(To view remainder of article see Comments below:)
Mr. Obama announced his selections for 12 ambassador posts on Wednesday, on top of six announced previously. Of the 18 nominees to date, just five are career diplomats, tapped for Iraq, Kosovo, Iceland, Brazil and Sri Lanka. The rest are a mix of fund-raisers, political figures, scholars and others from the private sector assigned desirable posts in places like Britain, France, Japan, China, Argentina, Ireland and Vatican City.
ReplyDeleteUnder past presidents, about a third of ambassador posts went to political appointees. Mr. Obama’s record is incomplete and the count may be skewed at this point since most of the openings available now were vacated by President George W. Bush’s political appointees while career foreign-service ambassadors largely stayed in place when Mr. Obama took over.
Not all of Mr. Obama’s political picks raised vast sums for him. Former Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, a Democrat who was a member of the Sept. 11 commission, will go to New Delhi. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah, assigned to Beijing, is a Republican who served as co-chairman of Senator John McCain’s campaign last year and was widely seen as a potential presidential candidate himself in 2012.
Others bring significant national security experience to their assignments even if they were political appointees, like Susan E. Rice, the new ambassador to the United Nations, Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the new ambassador to Afghanistan, and Ivo H. Daalder, the new ambassador to NATO.
“You see a group of committed individuals and proven professionals that are eager to serve their country,” Mr. Gibbs said Thursday. “Some of those individuals were fund-raisers, some of those were career ambassadors, some of those were people that left either teaching or some other thing like that.”
Mr. Rivkin, heading to Paris, is president and chief executive of Wild Brain, an entertainment company that created the popular children’s show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and a former president of the Jim Henson Company, known for Kermit and Miss Piggy. His White House biography stresses that Mr. Rivkin serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council and that his family has presented an award at the State Department since 1968 honoring constructive dissent.
What the White House did not mention was the cash he collected for Mr. Obama — more than $500,000 for his campaign and another $300,000 for his inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign money. Campaign finance reports also show that Mr. Rivkin gave more than $80,000 out of his own pocket over the last decade to Democratic candidates or party groups.
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