By Chris Shea, staff writer
you haven’t been paying attention to the news recently, first off…shame on you, current events are important. Also, you may have missed some interesting appointments President Obama and Congress have made.
The US Senate confirmed two Los Angeles fundraisers, Colleen Bell and political consultant Noah Mamet, as ambassadors after the nomination process.
The appointees are quite interesting considering the fact that they are completely under qualified for the jobs they were appointed to which left Senator John McCain (R) very unhappy.
Prior to the vote, McCain went on a rant about how Bell, a soap opera producer and fundraiser for President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, is “unqualified” to represent the United States as an ambassador to Hungary.
As for Mamet, he was appointed as the US Ambassador to Argentina, despite the fact that he has never set foot in that country, nor can he speak Spanish, the country’s official language.
How did these poor excuses for ambassadors land the job? Money. Together, Mamet and Bell raised more than $2.1 million for the re-election in 2012. And like they say, money talks.
Awarding large donors the chance to be an am- bassador is far from unusual. President George W. Bush named a Yale fraternity brother as the ambassador to Sweden; while President Bill Clinton picked a former Washington football linebacker to represent the United States in the Bahamas.
According to the American Foreign Service Association, 35 percent of the president’s ambassador picks have been “political” ones, while 65 percent came from a career background.
So if you ever want to add Secretary of the Navy to your résumé, just be sure to donate at least $500,000 to a political campaign. If you scratch their back, they’ll definitely scratch yours.