Candidate Obama promised to break the long-standing and regrettable American tradition of naming big donors as ambassadors. But as the Washington Times points out, President Obama has not delivered on this lofty promise. Instead, he’s reverted to type: the big donors mysteriously always seem to be best suited for the most attractive jobs.
Of course, some of the donors can hardly be said to have landed their posts by virtue of their contributions. Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah is headed for Beijing after donating $2,300 — to Senator McCain’s campaign. Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, won’t miss the $500 he donated to Obama when he’s buying a Guinness in Dublin. And while Susan Rice’s donation of $4,600 is a bit more substantial, she’s obviously a true believer. After all, working for this administration at the U.N. will take a true believer.
But when you move to the more tradition-steeped posts, the value of the donations made by the nominees rises pretty sharply. Louis B. Susman, nominated for the Court of St. James’s, bundled $400,000. Howard W. Gutman, nominated for Belgium, bundled $775,000. And Charles H. Rivkin, head of the entertainment company Wild Brain Inc., nominated for France, topped the list by bundling $800,000 for the President.
To my mind, though, the most interesting post in this regard is the newly-created position of Special Representative for Global Partnerships, which Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley took up on June 23. In her swearing-in remarks, the Ambassador described her approach as “Ubuntu Diplomacy: where all sectors belong as partners, where we all participate as stakeholders, and where we all succeed together, not incrementally but exponentially.”
Having read that announcement, I am not much the wiser about what her actual job will be, and I rather suspect the Administration will soon find out that it doesn’t really know either. But the position would
seem to be an excellent lure for donations in advance of 2012: I, for one, would pay not to be burdened with the job of “instill[ing] a new culture of inclusiveness and accessibility” in the State Department.
