Big Obama campaign donors get ambassadorships

meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

VOR: "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

In other words, you highly approve of Obama... or did you just hate 'the old boss'?

I always love people who try to diss and criticize Obama by suggesting he's the exact same as their hero (former president).

When Obama does it, it is different!

reading through this article, I can't find anyone who is a big donor... what is considered a big donor?

If all it takes is a few bucks to get an ambassadorship I'd like to know where I can sign up.

Mixed messages here. The information given tells us that some of these people are "career foreign officers" which is great, but some of the others only have business backgrounds mentioned. That doesn't look too good from an experience standpoint. But he's hardly the first president or world leader to give positions to campaign donors or supporters. (Of course, why would he give posts to people who don't support him? That already blew up in his face early on with one of his cabinet nominations of a Republican and some of the numerous times he's tried to "reach across the aisle." I think I'd be weary of the opposition as well.)

So much for the winds of change in Washington.....

Skip,

Yeah...sign me up too.

Taka

The Obamanator:

These positions are usually reserved for Bilderbergs, Tri-Laterals and CFRs.

aerockyulhim raises a couple of good points.

1) Obama is certainly not the first leader to do this. In fact, show me a leader who HASN'T. I don't recall any campaign promises to NOT give SOME positions to people who supported him.

2) Why would you give such positions to people who DON'T support you? At least a number of them are career foreign service operators, so why not? The donations are not illegal, nor is appointed these people ambassadors. Anyone whining about it is simply whining for whining's sake.

taka313: for that small amount, I'll even pay for you!

Mmmmm this Kool-Aid good

When Obama does it, it is different!

Change we can believe in.

If some of you actually voted for Obama on the grounds that he would change Washington, then you have a right to constantly bring it up in a facetious/vindictive/spiteful way. I doubt some of you actually did though, so what the H are you complaining about? Do you think McCain would have done any different? If you somehow believe that Obama is carrying on the status quo, well, that's exactly what you would have gotten with McCain. Most people who voted for Obama, though, aren't under the completely ludicrous assumption that he could possibly change over two hundred years of Washington politics in, what is it now...6 months??? The winds of change don't necessarily have to be hurricane force, and most rational people understand this.

President Obama's ambassador choices are all excellent.

goodDonkey at 11:10 AM JST - 27th June

"When Obama does it, it is different!"

teleprompter said:

Mmmmm this Kool-Aid good

I just wanted to try my hand at complete BS. You people do it so often that I figured there must be something to it. Nothing, to it; it completely lacks any gratification. Being truthful and factual is really the way to go.

Of course there will always be screwed up practices in Washington. Every job should be chosen on ability. But like another poster said. You can't "change over two hundred years of Washington politics[.]" Obama is effecting change that we expected. He is overturning conservative policy.

If Obama was uniquely involved in these practices the conservatives might have a debate here. After Tom "The Hammer" DeLay's practices on K Street that a myriad of Republicans benefited from I think we can forgo the faux anger. If the Republicans can live with themselves after the threats, coercion and extortion that took place under Mr. DeLay then I think we, Democrats, can live with a few appointments that were purchased. I hardly expect others to know what Tom DeLay actually did on K street (Hardly anyone even knows what K street is). It has become abundantly clear that most people have no perspective because they are incapable of doing any research themselves.

So no, I don't think it is any different if Obama does something that is bs. However if what he is doing is what everyone does then you need to criticize everyone. Obama has brought change we can believe in. I have seen him change many things already and the Republican/conservative shrieks are a testament to this. More change is coming. I never expected him to change everything; those are claims by idiot conservatives who want us to believe that Obama claimed he was bringing another version of the French Revolution. We don't need another bloodbath of liberals beheading liberals right now. The Republican party implosion is serving us all the entertainment needed in the political arena right now. Right now it is like watching Republicans in Stockton's The Lady, or the Tiger? with quite a twist added. The lady ruins their political career and the tigers will be there when they open the door to opportunity for the 2012 election. Maybe we will even see some more of the Republican men who like boys scenario before 2012 gets here.

In the meantime the Republicans will just have to continue wishing it was their president who was being criticized for his ambassador appointments and not our president.

That's the kind of 'change' that the Democrats believe in - the kind you can buy. It's an abomination (catch the pun there?)

Gov Blago got booted for doing exactly the same thing, "pay for play".

Obama is no better or worse than any other dirty politician.

I think the issue here smithinjapan is that he isn't exactly choosing people with the "best" qualifications for the job and passing on those who do because they didn't donate or participated in his campaign enough or at all. You're right that what he is doing is not illegal but some people may find it to be unethical and not exactly "change". As to your question about why would you choose someone who is against you, you don't, you can choose someone who is neutral about you or who is a supporter of you, but the issue though is that it seems he is "only" rewarding people who made significant money contributions to his campaign, so in a sense only the richest supporters or the elite supporters of obama get any type of "reward". So in a sense you could be someone who only contributed 100 bucks to his campaign and be more qualified for the job but you would get passed over by someone who donated several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

VOR said:

Gov Blago got booted for doing exactly the same thing, "pay for play".

/

Obama is no better or worse than any other dirty politician.

You are showing your ignorance again VOR. Without quid pro quo it is not the dirty shit that Blago pulled. I was one of the first to put Blago down and I certainly knew more about his crap than you did. But you can continue to prove you have no discretionary intellect. You can shoot off your mouth some more and prove that you have to b.s. your way through your comments because you are not up to the task of presenting facts and then asking people to accept your conclusion. The art of presenting premises and conclusions falls flat on its ass when your facts are just not true. Blago did commit "pay for play" by clearly presenting quid pro quo opportunities. Hopefully others will agree with you and we can identify them also as lacking the proper skills of debating facts.

Does anyone actually know anything about William Eacho or Bruce Oreck? I couldn't find anything about their backgrounds, and the article only seemed interested in their monetary contribution. However, for the other appointees, the article states that they are career foreign service workers or at least have some experience with the country they were appointed to (such as David Thorne). So for the majority of positions, it looks like Obama did at least a little homework and chose people who were qualified. However, at least in this article, we don't know about Eacho or Oreck (also nothing much turned up in a quick search related to their respective posts (Austria and Finland)). Perhaps they do have good experience in those specific countries that would be relevant, and perhaps they don't. Of course, if the article divulged all of that information it would give Obama-haters less reason to light up the comment pages.