U.S. Embassies for Sale?

As the Washington Post reported today, Obama has named big-dollar, unqualified political donors to key embassies. For Britain, he appointed Louis Susman, a businessman and lawyer who raised $730,000. For France, it's an $883,000 fundraiser who ran an entertainment company, Charles Rifkin. The Japan post went to John Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer who raised $545,000 for Obama.

The U.S. is fighting two wars, dealing with an unprecedented global recession and trying to restore its credibility and appeal in the world. Our ambassadors to Big Powers should be the most credible, experienced, talented and intellectual people to carry out the president's foreign policies.

The fantastic Al Kamen points out in his story that even President Clinton -- Mr. Sell-the-Lincoln-Bedroom -- did not give the most important embassies to his big donors, but rather gave political donors slots in smaller countries of less strategic importance.

President Bush 43 also appointed political donors as ambassadors to France and the UK. The difference is that Bush did not run on the "clean up Washington" platform as Obama did, and Bush's original appointments were pre- 9/11 -- when our biggest international crises were the Middle East peace process and Big Power relations were strong (alas, not anymore). And, Bush appointed the highly qualifed former Senate Majority Leader, Howard Baker, to be the ambassador to Japan.

Over the years, the cushy posts at The Court of Saint James and Paris have gone to fat-cat donors because it's an easy posting with the best government-paid housing in the world. Also, the standard has been that 30 percent of ambassadorships in the beginning of a presidency go to reward campaign donors and the other 70 percent are given to the career diplomats of the Foreign Service. Obama's claim to be cleaning up Washington is just words; he is doing the same things all the preceding presidents have done -- reward their money guys with fancy posts overseas and put career officers in the important posts.

I worked at the State Department as a political appointee and I know first-hand that the in-country, foreign policy person for the major nations should be someone who knows the issues, the players and has the credibility to carry out policies. If a political appointee fits that bill, so be it. But Obama'a appointees so far are, at best, lacking in credibility and, at worst, detrimental to our nation's interests.

There are 30-year foreign service officers sitting around Foggy Bottom right now with nothing to do. Obama and Secretary Clinton should tap these skilled diplomats, who have the experience and intellect to handle the complexities of foreign policy.

Obama claimed he was going to clean up Washington ethics. He needs to extend the promise outside the beltway and stop selling out U.S. embassies to his political donors.