Another Record for Obama

While Obama entered office promising to limit the practice, the State Department’s professional association says the rate of political appointees [for ambassadorships] reached an unprecedented level of 53 percent, once Obama began serving his second term in January 2013.

[...]

Under previous administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, that rate fluctuated between 27 and 38 percent.

  RT

Which is bad enough.  It seems like an ambassador ought to be an expert on the country to which he or she is appointed.  But what do I know?

The big-donor ambassadors are good enough, though, aren’t they?

Obama former ambassador to Luxemburg, Cynthia Stroum [wealthy venture capitalist and bundler for Obama coffers], left the diplomatic mission in disarray.

In February 2011, she was forced to step down from the post after a scathing State Department report said she brought “major elements of Embassy Luxembourg to a state of dysfunction.”

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Following Stroum’s dismissal, the State Department decided to stop issuing such de facto reports on ambassadors.

During Obama's first term, other political appointees in Malta, [...] Kenya and the Bahamas were also forced to step down over management issues, the UK’s Independent newspaper reports.

[...]

George Tsunis, CEO of Chartwell Hotels, who raised about $1.3 million for Obama and the Democratic Party, raised more than a few eyebrows at his hearing to be confirmed as ambassador to Norway.

Having admitted he’d never actually visited the country, he then went on to refer to Prime Minister Erna Solberg as president of the country and suggested that the conservative Progress Party, which is part of the ruling coalition, was a “fringe element” that “spewed hatred.”

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Noah Bryson Mamet, who was picked to be US ambassador to Argentina, shocked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month by admitting he had never actually been to the country and could not speak Spanish.

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Obama’s pick for US envoy to Hungary, Colleen Bell, fared no better. Having served as a producer for the TV soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, Bell was unable to answer fundamental questions regarding US strategic interests in Hungary.

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Writing for Politico, James Bruno, a retired Foreign Service officer, noted the clear bilateral experience gap.

“For the purposes of comparison, Norway’s ambassador to the Washington is a 31-year Foreign Ministry veteran. Hungary’s ambassador is an economist who worked at the International Monetary Fund for 27 years,” he said.

Bruno said you can chalk up the resume imbalance to one simple fact: “The United States is the only industrialized country to award diplomatic posts as political spoils, often to wealthy campaign contributors in an outmoded system that rivals the patronage practices of banana republics, dictatorships and two-bit monarchies.”

I think that’s us. ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.