DNC leaks reveal former FCC chairman (2009-2013) paid DNC $3.5 mil for position
i.sli.mg
i.sli.mg
The best writeup so far is a reddit comment (take that as you will): https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/52ol7g/wikileaks_...
The FCC chairman case is just the tip of the iceberg, but I figured this headline would be the most likely to pass under the radar given recent revelations about YC's political affiliations.
https://scholarsandrogues.com/2007/06/25/bushs-patronage-app... compares the ambassadorial political appointees of George W. Bush to that of Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush.
> Many of George W. Bush’s nominees have been significant donors to his election campaigns or have personal and political connections to the president.
> Consider the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David H. Wilkins. (No relation to me.)
> President Bush nominated him in 2005. He’s been a South Carolina state legislator. He’s a friend of President George H.W. Bush and raised more than $200,000 for President George W. Bush in the 2004 election. Ambassador Wilkins and his immediate family contributed $33,050 to Republicans over the course of the 2000, 2002 and 2004 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Apparently, he’d only been to Canada once — 30 years before his appointment — as part of military service.
> President Bush nominated Michael M. Wood as ambassador to Sweden in 2006. He knew President Bush, too. He used to ride mountain bikes with the president and attended Yale with him. He was a fraternity brother of the president. Ambassador Wood made his money by founding Hanley Wood, a company that produces magazines for the construction industry.
> Ambassador Wood’s predecessor, former Texas state Senator Teel Bivins, ambassador from 2004 to 2006, was a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and 2004. (Pioneers raised at least $100,000 for President Bush in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. In 2004, Rangers and SuperRangers raised at least $200,000 or $300,000 respectively. This system was designed by Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser.)
> Many other appointees nominated by President Bush followed this pattern of financial or political familiarity.
That list continues, followed by links to criticism like “Speaking Out: Political appointees: a cost-benefit analysis.” and "Alan D. Berlind, a retired Foreign Service officer writing in American Diplomacy, thinks such patronage appointments to diplomatic posts do not serve the nation well." with a quote and link to why.
> U.S. presidents have long rewarded big campaign donors, fundraisers and other loyalists with ambassadorships, and Democratic President Barack Obama seems to be no exception.
Because of modern communications, it's much easier for the State Department to manage overseas relations from Washington. There's the belief that it's okay to put political appointees in that position than career diplomats.
See also http://www.npr.org/2014/02/12/275897092/more-ambassador-post... , which highlights some of the errors of that view point, like when George Tsunis, nominee to become ambassador to Norway, said the leading Norwegian political party was a "fringe element."
It was much worse than that. If he'd just said they were a fringe element, it'd still have been embarrassingly undiplomatic, but most of the population of Norway would agree.
The party in question ("Progress Party" / Fremskrittspartiet) has never been the leading party, but they are now the junior coalition partner in government. At the same time they are also the most right-wing party in parliament, and widely detested by voters for most other parties. As an example of how they are often politically isolated, when the senior coalition party recently negotiated a settlement over asylum policy, they ended up negotiating a deal that every other party in parliament, from the Socialist Left Party, through the Labour Party, and several small centrist parties agreed to, but not Progress Party. Wide consensus agreements on basic principles in an area (e.g. there was one agreed related to pensions a few years ago) is common in Norway, and Progress Party often end up not even being invited, or being invited and quickly sidelined because they others find common ground without them. So they're pretty much objectively a fringe party. Doesn't mean he should've actually said it out loud if he wants to be a diplomat, of course.
But what he actually said [1] went further. In his answer to a question about why they were popular, he said pretty much that when you have free speech, you get some fringe elements, but that the Norwegian government had been quick to condemn them.
At which point he was interrupted by McCain, who pointed out that they were in fact part of the governing coalition. McCain later ended the questioning by sarcastically thanking "the extremely highly qualified candidates" (paraphrased; I translated back from a Norwegian report).
[1] based on this Norwegian report: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/flaut-da-usas-nye-amba...