From NPR this morning, Obama has appointed two more political hacks to ambassadorships. Yes I can bash Obama because 40% of his appointments are hacks (i.e. not career foreign service personnel) whereas historically it has been 30% (again facts from NPR) but I have enough faith to believe that the President with the Advice & Consent of the Senate can distinguish between what is needed in an Ambassador at the Court of St. James and our embassy in Kigali.
Instead let’s discuss the Bold and the Beautiful producer Colleen Bell, our new ambassador to Hungary. When reporters asked Obama’s Press Secretary about her qualifications,
[QUOTE=Daily Mail (UK)]
Earnest hemmed and hawed before describing Bell as ‘somebody who retains the confidence that, well, let me say it this way: Ambassador Bell has the president’s confidence that she will do an excellent job representing the U.S. and maintaining the important relationship the U.S. has with the government and the people of Hungary.’
[/QUOTE]
and basically she’s been successful in private industry so why wouldn’t she make a great ambassador.
Much is being made of her complete that “in her confirmation hearing she couldn’t even name a single strategic interest the U.S. had with Hungary” but those quotes don’t do justice to her answer. I can’t find a clip of the audio online (yet) to Sen. McCain’s question but her response sounded like this.
So what is the debate here? I guess there are a few ways to go.
Is the situation in Hungary one that demands a career diplomat instead of a high-roller campaign contributor?
What does it mean that the Pubs that threaten a filibuster over many (no not all) of Obama’s appointments did not filibuster this one? They had 42 votes against so cloture was not an issue.
McCain is furious yet seems to have little support from fellow Pubs. Most of the protests seem to be coming from journalists. What does that mean?
Is the Senate at fault for letting this get through? Do we lambast Obama over this like we did with GWB and Harriet Miers? Or should we not care because it’s only an ambassador?
Does this indicate a problem with the system and that maybe ambassadorships should be given to career foreign service personnel regardless of where the assignment is?
Not IMO. It’s not like the UK or Russia or China or something. And she was probably unable to name a strategic interest that we share with Hungary because there aren’t many. It’s a beautiful country with a rich history, but they don’t do an excessive amount of business with the US, they don’t have a lot of oil, and they aren’t going to invade anybody or develop the Bomb.
It means that notion that Republicans will oppose every single thing Obama does because he’s black is a wrong notion.
It means Obama appointed a big donor a low-stress ambassadorship. BFD, except if you’re McCain and looking for a bit of PR.
We should not care.
I don’t see why. It won’t hurt anything to send this woman to Budapest and let her go to parties and feel important. The career diplomats will deal with tourists who lose their passports and shield her from the low-level spies. She will write a report on Hungary that nobody will read every six months or so, and come 2017 it will be given to someone else (hopefully to a big GOP donor).
Patronage perks are still part of being President, and Obama had better dole them out ASAP until the new Congress is seated and he will have to deal with a Senate where he is outnumbered even more than 41-59.
While I agree with the OP’s opinion of the ambassadors in question, I can’t get too outraged, because this kind of appointment has been standard operating procedure for years, in BOTH parties.
Is this the first time a big donor with no visible qualifications has been given an ambassadorship? Hardly. EVERY administration has given such jobs to equally unqualified donors.
Anyway, in THIS day and age, when we have instant communications, the job of an ambassador isn’t what it once was. It’s not 1814, when an ambassador to England or France WAS the voice of the US, since it would take weeks or months for the British government to get in touch with the President or Secretary of State.
In 2014, if something really serious were happening in Budapest, the Hungarian President would go right over the ambassador’s head and get in touch with Washington.
So relax. It’s not as if a bad ambassador can do much damage.
P.S. I felt exactly the same way about the James Hormel appointment. Who cares who’s ambassador to Luxembourg?
Just because it’s been mentioned a couple of times in the thread: How many of the Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James’s do you think have been career diplomats?
In the hearing, McCain is being a complete dick. He won’t let her finish a sentence. If she is so obviously stupid, wouldn’t it be best to let her demonstrate that by letting her completing a thought?
According to Wikipedia, Bell has a very active public life including being chair or board member of numerous nonprofits ranging from the a UCLA rape treatment center to promoting clean technology in clothing manufacturing.
And being a producer isn’t some kind of non-job. It’s actually a pretty similar skill set- managing high level relationships, finding the intersection between the needs of your administration and the needs of your audience, hiring very smart people, and being responsible for using huge budgets to execute a vision. She will have ample access to any subject matter expertise she may need.
It wouldn’t be my first pick, but it’s not like it’s completely out there.
The bright side is that as a NATO ally a lot of our most important dealings will be through the NATO structure instead of through the ambassador. The downside is it’s a NATO ally… that borders Ukraine… you know the country that is currently at the forefront of NATO-Russian friction. She can’t even name that they are in Eastern Europe and we’ve committed ourselves to go to war in their defense when asked about our strategic interests?:smack:
Between the NATO structure and modern communications she can probably sit out even a Russia-NATO cage fight without being given significant duties. It’s a posting that makes “smart power” seem like an oxymoron though.
They do or at least according to some Hungarian students at my university. The Bold and the Beautiful is one of them and popular. According to one grad student, she’ll probably be the first American ambassador in a long time that the average Hungarian will consider successful and distinguished.
I was going to nominate Laura Bell Bundy (motto: “The motivation is not to be famous, it’s to have fun until I drop dead”), since I thought she was part of the Bell family, but apparently I was completely wrong about that. I still think she’d be a good choice – apparently one of her nicknames is “The Ambassador of Good Times”.
The OP called her an idiot. This just isn’t true. Nobody can reach the level she has in Hollywood without being smart, ruthless, and good at manipulating people.
It appears that she’s being rewarded for facilitating the fund raising and relationships that Obama and the Democrats needed in Hollywood.