Authority figures and ‘cronyism’ shouldn’t mix

By Editorial Board

Publication Date: 11/04/2009

It has been a year since President Obama’s election – an election that promised change. And though Obama has set in motion some policies that are a change from the previous administration, he appears to be reneging on at least one of those “change” promises.

During his historic election, Obama said he was committed to ending the politicization of foreign policy.

Many Americans aren’t aware Obama has handed foreign ambassador appointments to people with little to no foreign policy experience to nations like Japan, Spain, India and others. It appears Obama has forgotten his full commitment to change.

For Obama to appoint individuals with such questionable foreign policy experience to many of these ambassador positions is troubling. That each of these appointees appear to be either major campaign donors or close personal associates of Obama makes their appointments further egregious.

These positions are very important and deserve to be treated as such. Implications as to how important a country is to a presidential administration are often drawn by the profile of the official appointed to be an ambassador to that country. For an administration to send an individual with zero foreign policy credentials as an ambassador implies the administration doesn’t highly value its relationship with that country.

During the poor response to Hurricane Katrina, former president George W. Bush was heavily criticized for having appointed close associates to important positions despite their lack of qualifications – most notably Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA. If we criticized Bush for “cronyism,” we must also criticize Obama for what appears to be the same thing.

There are many foreign ambassador positions yet to be filled. If Obama wants to demonstrate he is changing the way Washington has viewed foreign policy over the last several years, he would do well to appoint individuals that have foreign policy experience.