The Cost of Plum Positions

Many American ambassadors get their position by donating money to a political party, the more the donation, the better the location. But what bang do you get for your buck? Margaret Carlson (Toronto Star, Feb 22 2014) asked the question, " how stupid can you be and still be a US ambassador?" George Tsunis, Obama's appointment to Norway didn't even bother to look that country up on Wikipedia to find out that it is not a monarchy. He also managed to call the Progress Party, part of the ruling coalition, an extremist group with fringe elements. Mercifully, he was stopped by senator McCain before he created an international incident. He is an ace at fundraising, however and brought in almost one million dollars for Obama in 2012. Thirty-seven per cent of his appointees are not career diplomats narrowly trailing Ford and Reagan who weighed in at thirty-eight per cent. The cost of plum positions is going up, however. George Bush sent Henry Catto to London in 1989 for contributions in the low six figures. Nowadays, appointees to Rome, Paris, and Stockholm raised a total of $5 million. Just another sorry side of our system. John Ayers