1) Presidents and other government workers have the right to take vacations. Dubya of course took off a record amount. I challenge you to provide any proof that Obama or Bush for that matter took off a whole month w.o working IIRC it was at the Crawford Ranch that Dubya and Tony Blair decided to attack Iraq long before all the wmd bs played out. 2) Instead of just talking about "influence of money" and "fundraising" I hope you support government financing of elections. or you are just jerking off and not serious.
Have you considered that the "largely ceremonial" nature of these positions may be a necessity brought on by unqualified political appointees? Moreover, even if it's hard to say what "merit" is for an ambassador, I think we can say that it doesn't emerge from having made political contributions. I'm not sure what you mean about "stamping passports," as that doesn't capture what FSOs do. That aside, I'm sure there are a lot of employees at all levels of the State Department who would like to be ambassadors some day, and this sort of thing must demoralizing for all of them. It's like nepotism in the private sector. Why bust your tail gunning for that executive job when the boss is just going to hand it to his idiot son? Really, Sam, I've always enjoyed your posts, but I just can't go with you on this one. From a policy standpoint, there is no argument whatsoever for continuing these political appointments.
She's been a CEO of a half-a-billion dollar organization for decades coupled with extensive relationship and communications-driven experience. Probably as close experience to cabinet secretary or departmental spokesperson / chief-of-staff as one could get, actually. A little tacky and simplistic to lump her in with any other "liberal" "celebrity."
Career diplomats get sent to places that matter like Libya, Israel, Iraq, Russia, China. When you need a glorified social secretary, you pick people like Anna Wintour who are imminently connected, want the job, and have the skills you need. It does look bad, but if anyone is qualified to host a bunch of parties it's a person like Anna Wintour who has hosted a ton of parties, is very well-connected, and who has experience running a very large multi-national business. Even though she is imminently qualified for the position, I don't think we should be appointing anyone who has been a mega-fundraiser for a campaign. It gives off the appearance of impropriety even if it is actually a good idea. But when it comes to outcry over political appointments, I think there are better places to direct one's attention, like the financial sector or regulatory agencies - places where appointments have tangible effects on American lives and where we seem to have no problem with foxes guarding the hen house.
Exactly - I've asked twice, and gotten no response. Does anyone actually know what the qualifications are for ambassador to the UK and can they explain why she's not qualified?
I have. Read earlier in the thread. The post of Minister to the Court of Saint James ceased having real world relevance decades ago - the name alone should clue you in to this. When the President needs to ring 10 Downing, or the Elysée etc- he does so. It actually is what they do in non hotspot locales (which London hasn't been for about 60years). And frankly if any FSO is deluded enough to think they can rise to the rank of being UK ambassador he or she is probably an idiot - considering it has probably never happened in 2+ centuries and probably lacks ambition to boot...these are considered swish postings. Sure...except that you appear to be equating the position of cruise director emiritus with chief engineer of a nuclear submarine. Afghanistan, Iraq etc are the latter while Paris, London and Geneva are the former. You tell me where the top resources are more needed - in Kabul or a party in Kensington? Doesn't seem there's much of an argument to the contrary either. Frankly I think Wintour would kill it in London with the tasks set before her. Certainly far better than the oilmen bros there during the W regime.
I would agree if being an ambassador was just parties and wine, but there's quite a few elements in there that ideally require meritocratic appointment. Diplomats are the eyes and ears of the State Department throughout the world. As Wikileaks has revealed to most, the amount of information passed through diplomatic channels is staggering, and the insights reached on the ground are key towards making decisions at all levels. I'm not saying being ambassador to the UK requires x amount of unattainable skill to non-FSOs, but it certainly requires more than the ceremonial partying skills that people are putting out there. For example, getting an inkling of what steps Mark Carney is going to take the British banking system towards might be important, especially with relation to the LIBOR crisis, as that has significance in global economics, and would play a factor in Fed and Treasury decisions. Having an accurate measure of Lib Dem-Conservative coalition dynamics and how a Labour government would react to American policy etc. etc. Sure, the ambassador probably has technical staff under them to figure all this stuff out, but it's probably at the highest level that you want the sharpest eyes. Anna Wintour might write well, but god knows what she knows about British politics.
So, you admit that ambassadors appointed based on merit would accomplish more, in which case the positions would have more significance. Isn't that enough of an argument against the spoils system, given that there's no argument in favor of it? You'd have to be using an extremely broad definition of "hotspot" here, as most countries in the world have American FSOs that do much more than just rubberstamp documents. And I'm not sure why you're just talking about FSOs in London. It's not like you have to have been an FSO in a country to be appointed ambassador there. It's not uncommon for a top FSO to spend a career in extremely challenging countries and then be promoted to ambassador in a more stable country. Anyway, this isn't just about London. Close to half of our ambassadors are political appointees. Um, this is kind of my point. FSOs (and other qualified government employees) are aware that these kinds of positions are out of reach to them because they'll just be given to political appointees. Therefore, why strive for it? What I'm saying is that shouldn't be the case. See my first point above. I think both embassies need to be staffed with qualified people. It's not like we have to choose one or the other to send political appointees to. I don't think Wintour is the best example of the problems here. She might actually be qualified, although there's obviously the appearance of impropriety. I'm more concerned with people like these. With the spoils system, sometimes you get a Wintour, sometimes you get oilmen brothers. Even if you think there are a few countries where it doesn't matter at all whether the ambassador is qualified (I would disagree), the scope of the spoils system goes way beyond a few countries. You can think there's not "much of an argument to the contrary," but there's at least some argument. And there's zero argument whatsoever in favor of handing out ambassadorships (and taxpayer dollars) to the highest bidder. None.
No, because "merit" for a figureheady-job like this is difficult to measure and more or less meaningless. It's not like somebody who works 18 hour days is necessarily going to be better at ambassadoring than somebody who works 8 hour days. And the correlation between who gets the highest eval scores in the FSO yearly rankings and who is best to attend ribbon cuttings and galas in one of the cush jobs is very low. Sure I mean if we want to impose some "FSO merit" screen for ambassadorships, I'd say service in the host country is a critical requirement. I think you're seriously overestimating the incremental productivity gains that will accrue. Why don't we just raise FSO salaries or something or bonuses instead if that's an issue? It seems like "well you should work hard in a critical posting in Pakistan so that you can take it easy someday on the cocktail party circuit" is the wrong way to go about it and leads to a misallocation of resources. Especially if it doesn't lead to the right people being chosen for the cocktail party circuit. Sure a spoils system sucks as a general principle in isolation, but if it's not leading to bad outcomes and the "merit" based system in this instance is difficult to really implement on a logically coherent, I don't think it's a big deal. yeah but nobody actually does that. It doesn't go to the highest bidder by virtue of it being the highest. It goes to high bidders, but it's not the Price is Right . . . George Clooney isn't going to swoop in and outbid Wintour by a dollar like the Price is Right and go to the Showcase Showdown. Frankly if you're concerned with taxpayers, maybe we should only appoint richie-riches who voluntarily forego a salary (ambassadorships actually used to be unpaid by law) rather than career bureaucrats looking to put their kids through college before easing into retirement.
To add one more item - if we're going to have a system where rich donors are rewarded (and we do and will for the foreseeable future) - where do you think rich donors should be stashed? You can stash them in places where they can do damage or relatively harmless overseas postings in friendly countries where they can't really affect policy. I'd rather have Bush's oil buddies in London, Paris, Berlin than wrecking sh-t in the DOI or the EPA or Cheney's secret energy cabal
Incidentally, this is no worse than picking your favorite drive-time talk show host to be spokesperson for the largest and most powerful and influential government in the world. For all his resources, legacy admits and the relative accomplishments of his father, grandfather and all of his siblings, George W. Bush was a simple, hollow little man.
The links I posted earlier showed that political appointees have damaged our international relations and the morale of their employees. And I don't think it's that hard to implement a much better standard of merit than political donations. I guess we'll disagree about the degree to which these things are true. Not much use arguing over that here. I just don't accept the premise here. Sure, I'd rather be kicked in the shin than the nuts, but I really won't be ok with either. I'll always have a problem with any administration giving out government positions in exchange for money.
Addendum - a good article about the practice from last week, but another consideration is that not only do Ambassadors in non-hotspot countries tend to fulfill figurehead/ceremonial/cultural roles rather than diplomatic ones, but are expected to perform their duties as social host on their own dime....
