A Muppet in President Obama's Court

Sonia Sotomayor is not the only recent Obama appointment. She may be the most significant pick, but she is hardly the most intriguing. To wit, I direct your attention to a short Associated Press item, which appeared in papers including the New York Times, about some of President Obama's recent ambassadorial appointments:

President Obama has picked a retired Citigroup executive as ambassador to Britain, a theology professor to represent the United States at the Vatican and a former member of the Sept. 11 commission as envoy to India. The five ambassadors announced on Wednesday, whose nominations require confirmation by the Senate, included Louis Susman, a retired vice chairman of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking, for the post in Britain. He has also been a major Democratic fund-raiser.

The White House also announced that it planned to nominate Miguel H. Díaz, an associate professor of theology at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., as the envoy to the Vatican. Former Representative Tim Roemer of Indiana, a Democrat who served on the Sept. 11 commission, was selected to be ambassador to New Delhi. Charles Rivkin, a former financial analyst and homeland security adviser, was chosen for the job in France. He has run companies like the Jim Henson Company. John Roos, an Internet and biotechnology lawyer, was tapped as the United States' top diplomat to Japan.

The "Jim Henson Company" that Charles Rivkin ran sounds pretty vague -- but it is worth noting that Jim Henson was the creator of the Muppets. Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder why a man associated with the Muppets should be ambassador to France? Perhaps there is a humor piece in there somewhere. What about why an Internet lawyer should be top dog in Japan? Or may we know what Tim Roemer's experience on the 9/11 commission taught him about India? Even the choice of an associate professor from a little-known university as envoy to the Vatican seems to require a more detailed explanation.

Perhaps we will be hearing more details. Perhaps. But the subject of ambassadorial appointments has never gotten the media scrutiny it deserves. Everyone just assumes these are plums for supporters, and that's that. Clearly, though, strings have been pulled, but I doubt Miss Piggy will be forthcoming.

(Oh, by the way, Mr. Rivkin was also the Obama campaign's California Finance Co-chair. I hear France is nice this time of year.)

Comments

[CanadianinNY]

Mr. Baker, I agree with you that appointing supporters to plum ambassadorship posts is an appalling practice. I was hoping Mr. Obama would appoint career diplomats to these posts. I think these appointments say much about how we view these countries – I doubt he would appoint a fundraiser to Israel or Saudi Arabia, those are reserved for career diplomats or people who have a knowledge about the region. I guess the ambassador to India has some knowledge of foreign affairs, one hopes.

[SaltySaltillo]

Why is the muppet reference relevant - running a company takes company-running skills, not puppetry skills. Would anybody feel better if the resume included running an oil exploration company? Arguably the latter might be a better skill for specific ambassadorships... like maybe to Saudi Arabia or Nigeria. But really, at the end of the day, it is the leadership and managerial skill set that matters, not the fact that your last meaningful connection to the company in question was when you were 10 years old.

[SaltySaltillo]

Russ Baker - I think your blog is going in the wrong direction. Ambassadorships are plums. They always have been. And this is how it should be. It takes an army of unseen, unrecognized forces to put a president in office. Favors must be repaid. Personally, I would rather see favors repaid with ambassadorship appointments than with really significant governmental posts. Just what exactly are you afraid Rivkin might do as ambassador to France? Have to much to drink and make a pass at Carla Bruni?

[grave-robber]

Why do his previous ventures matter... If he is qualified, then he's qualified. Maybe he has high connections in their government, I don't know.

[winterthur]

Does anyone else remember Ambassador Shirley Temple Black?

She has served our country under four presidents: Richard Nixon appointed her United States Representative to the United Nations in 1969, for Gerald Ford she was Ambassador to the Republic of Ghana and later the first woman White House Chief of Protocol, for Ronald Reagan she served as a foreign affairs officer with the State Department, and George Bush appointed her Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. In 1988 she published her best-selling autobiography.

[RegLib]

Shirley Temple was a moppet, not a muppet.

[rainbowblue]

You're kidding, right? Ambassadorships are usually one of the only way a President gets to reward his most loyal supporters without Congressional approval. One does not need experience to be Ambassador to anything, it can help if a President is seeking help in relations with that country, but it is not a deal breaker. That is why there are more experienced State Department officers working there, to deal with the diplomatic issues.

There is a whole boat load of things to critique Obama on, but Ambassador to France...please. Who cares!

[LMPE]

Who's your choice for ambassador?

[zanzig]

Meanwhile here in Australia we're still waiting. Mind you your former President left the post in Australia vacant for over 12 months so we do know our place in the scheme of things, but hope springs eternal.

[RegLib]

The problem is finding someone that's willing to live in Canberra. When even a bunch of Aussies can't manage to make a city cheerful, you know it's a pretty bleak place to begin with.

[Luigi53102]

With regard to Charles Rivkin, from Wikipedia:
"His father, a lawyer, was Ambassador to Luxembourg under President Kennedy and Ambassador to Senegal and Gambia under President Johnson. He received a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University."
I'm willing to bet that's a whole lot more diplomatic experience than the author can claim.
Snark.

[dct1999]

Thanks for doing the writer's homework for him.

[Russ Baker - Huffpost Blogger]

So let's see: You don't know what his father's qualifications were to be ambassador, but the fact that the father was an ambassador somehow qualifies the son to be ambassador? Based on that familial entitlement, we might at least wonder if the fact that he went to Yale and got an MBA from Harvard, the exact pattern as George W. Bush, might be the result of a family legacy. The point here, Luigi, is that we have a right to know more about the process by which top diplomats are selected, and that we ought to be more curious. And in case you are interested, I have reported from many foreign locales over the years, including Central Africa (genocide), Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the former Yugoslavia. So, to take you on with that bet, I do think I probably have as much relevant foreign experience as Mr. Rivkin.

[ThinkCreeps]

Might make more sense if the muppet went to the vatican.

[SaltySaltillo]

Maybe he should have appointed Romney to the Vatican in a gesture of bipartisanship ... wouldn't that be fun?