President Obama has continued the practice of selling ambassadorship off to wealthy friends and donors — a practice that many used to denounce during Republican administration but has been dismissed with a shrug in this Administration. I have long been critical of the practice which places a president’s and a party’s interest ahead of that of the nation. I was at a dinner party a few years ago where an Obama donor spoke openly how the White House gave him an ambassadorship and he decided to just give it to his wife who he said is delighted that she is now called “ambassador” wherever she goes. As discussed this weekend, donor Noah Bryson Mamet has been nominated for ambassador to Argentia but has never even visited the country. This follows an embarrassing hearing with Obama bundler George Tsunis, who was nominated for ambassador to Norway. Tsunis showed as striking lack of knowledge of that country.
Mamet simply told the committee that “I haven’t had the opportunity yet to be there. I’ve traveled pretty extensively around the world, but I haven’t yet had a chance.” Putting aside the lack of diplomatic experience of these friends and donors, what is more remarkable is that Mamet knew he was going to be nominated for many months but never thought it might be a good idea to just go there once, even on vacation. The same can be said bout Tsunis who did not appear to view it as necessary to actually learn about the country in which he would serve as ambassador for the United States.
Mamet is the founder of political consulting firm Noah Mamet & Associates, and used to work for former House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt. He was given the ambassadorship after serving as a bundler for Obama and the Democratic Party in the 2012 campaigns. While he did serve on a delegation to monitor elections in Sierra Leone as part of the National Democratic Institute, he has no diplomatic experience and obviously no connection to Argentina — a major diplomatic posting.
The silence from Democrats and liberals over the continuation of corrupt practice is a disgrace. Many countries only use professional diplomats for such high positions. It is not only to serve their countries better but as a sign of respect to the other nation. The United States has had a long and sordid history of embarrassing nominees who are given ambassadorial positions as payback. This has continued with Obama with donors who often embarrass the United States for their sense of entitlement.
Now, after years of tense relations, Argentina is watching Obama send someone who has not even bothered to visit the country — fulfilling a stereotype of insular Americans. This is not like some distinct, dangerous spot like Yemen (which no bundler would want). Argentina is hard to miss for people traveling in the region. That is really going to help relations. The most we can say is that Mamet was not just some wealthy guy but forked over serious money to Obama and the Democratic Party to achieve this distinction. My problem is that, if we are going to sell top diplomatic posts, I would prefer to do it the honest way and just have bidding on Ebay with the money going into the U.S. Treasury rather than either of the parties. At least we would then get some value for our government positions.
Mamet strikes me as an intelligent person. However, he is no diplomat and Argentina is a major player in the region. The solution is simple: limit ambassador positions to career diplomats or at least people who have held prior diplomatic posts. I understand that we could lose a few talented people but we would eliminate a far greater number of incompetents. If a president wants to reward wealthy friends, I suggest the Lincoln bedroom — there is a virtual credit card machine attached to the door.
You can be hiking through the wilds of wherever, and be sure to find a German or an Australian. But Americans? With less vacation time than almost any other advanced economy, and a tax code that makes it difficult to work overseas, most Americans only get to see the world from behind a gun, or a camera as they zoom through the sights in a few days. Add to this the insanity of US immigration laws, and the “foreigners” most Americans meet are poor Hispanics laborers. Needless to say, this does not lead to any sort of balanced understanding of foreign cultures and perspectives.
For the sole superpower, this sort of ignorance is not only a weakness, it is dangerous.
Fight Back Tomorrow
Drone Attack Controversy: Obama Administration Wrestling With Whether To Target U.S. Terror Suspect
AP | by KIMBERLY DOZIER
Posted: 02/10/2014 5:39 am EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/10/drone-attack-controversy_n_4758546.html
Excerpts:
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American citizen who is a member of al-Qaida is actively planning attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials say, and the Obama administration is wrestling with whether to kill him with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy issued last year.
The CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he’s a U.S. citizen and the Justice Department must build a case against him, a task it hasn’t completed.
Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And President Barack Obama’s new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.
Two of the officials described the man as an al-Qaida facilitator who has been directly responsible for deadly attacks against U.S. citizens overseas and who continues to plan attacks against them that would use improvised explosive devices.
But one U.S. official said the Defense Department was divided over whether the man is dangerous enough to merit the potential domestic fallout of killing an American without charging him with a crime or trying him, and the potential international fallout of such an operation in a country that has been resistant to U.S. action.
Another of the U.S. officials said the Pentagon did ultimately decide to recommend lethal action.
…
U.S. drones have killed four Americans since 2009, including al-Awlaki, who the administration said was actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the three other Americans were killed by drones, but were not targeted. The three are Samir Khan, who was killed in the same drone strike as al-Awlaki; al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, a native of Denver who was killed in Yemen two weeks later; and Jude Kenan Mohammed, who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.
Chicago politics brought to DC. Imagine Mayor Daley being prez back in the 60’s. It would have been a goldmine for Royko.
I agree with Wayne. SmilingAtheist needs to be thrown off this Blog. You are a sick, sick, thing.
Yes Obama picks his ambassadors with more reason, (they donate to him) then he does the people he kills! Here’s more of anon posted link info: “The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.
According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.”
Good thing I didn’t vote for McCain or Romney. It’s much better that Obama is murdering and torturing and starving people than one of those two candidates. WOW, that would have been a REAL disaster, but thank god, Obama is the killer in chief!
Yet more fiddling while Rome burns. Pull the money and pull the croneyism that it attracts.
Exactly. I still love how McCain was taking campaign funds from a prominent Georgia figure, and was quick to want to put American troops in front of Russian tanks during that whole debacle. If I remember correctly, we worked really hard to avoid that scenario from ’45 to ’90 or so. I’m sorry, that seems to me to require at least a sobriety test. ?? Sure he wants to do the same in Ukraine.
I am very disappointed in President Obama, he is not the dynamic leader I had hoped for. Given the other options of McCain/Palin or Romney/Ryan my voting decision was almost made for me.
I’m sorry I ever voted for the Nig-gra
The creme rises to the top…… So does curled milk and what’s left in the toilet bowl after a good dump….. They are called floaters…..
Maybe part of the reason the world feels more like February 1914.
Correction:
The same guy who **reportedly** said:
“Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.” -Barack Obama**
(**Reported in “Double Down: Game Change 2012″ by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and repeated on Democracy Now today)
Read “The Power Elite” by C. Wright Mills. It explains why this happens. The explanation is empirical and quantitative. It’s not political corruption, its the culture of elitism.
“Bundled or Bungled? Obama Nominates Major Donor As Ambassador To Argentina Who Has Never Even Visited The Country” -Jonathan Turley
The same guy who said:
“Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.” -Barack Obama**
(**Reported in “Double Down: Game Change 2012” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and repeated on Democracy Now today)
OT:
Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill on “Democracy Now” this morning, after launching their new site “The//Intercept”, a publication of Pierre Omidyar’s recent venture “First Look Media”:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/news/
What the administration doesn´t realize is that Norway actually educates its populace. The Norwegians won´t think it is “cool” to call an idiot “Ambassador”. Americans put up with these appointments because most of them don´t know where Norway is on the map. But the problem isn´t only with uneducated Ambassadors. American diplomats don´t have the foreign language skills that their counterparts from other countries do have. I´ve met many career diplomats in Europe who spoke no foreign language. Not to mention their basic lack of knowledge of the European way of life. They live in their own little American bubble. One consular officer informed me that my child could not be an American because she could see from my passport that I had been to London 9 months before the child´s date of birth, so maybe her German dad was not really her father. Huh?
The congress allows the military to bad-mouth then invade countries they have never visited, so this is not that much of a departure.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
More proof that, as The Grey Enigma pointed out George Carlin famous observation, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” Who is in it? The ultra-wealthy, the connected and mostly the incompetent, entitled class.
Incompetence or malevolence is the question. Is he trying to destroy the country or is he just utterly incompetent.
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma and commented:
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” – George Carlin