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Alan Solomond, Ambassador Bruce Oreck, Ambassador's christmas cards, Bruce Oreck, Craig Roberts Stapelton, Cynthia Stroum, Donald Gips, George Herbert Walker III, George Herbert Walker IV, John Roos, Louis Susman, Pamela Harriman, US Ambassador to Finland, US Ambassador to Luxembourg, US Ambassador to Paris, US Ambassador to Prague, US Ambassadors, Walker Stapleton
Last year you may remember that Ambassador Oreck gave up the above delight.
Did he have second thoughts afterwards? Did he feel any shame for making his country look vulgar?
Do you wonder what is he going to pop out in the post so you can put it in pride of place on the mantelpiece this time? So did I. So just out of curiosity I sought out the delicacy he was favouring his nearest and dearest with. This is the official Christmas card from the United States Ambassador to Helsinki, Finland. Yes it’s real. Yes it is from a fully fledged embassy.
Don’t let him flannel criticism by kidding you it’s a “private” card. Not with his work title plastered across the card ,and supported up front and hugely obvious with the official seal it isn’t.
It’s an embarrassment, now going the rounds of the internet, and not just because it’s cheap, tawdry, and tacky, but because it is an example of America’s oligarchy and its corruption of the state seeping into every part of public life.
You see Bruce Oreck is not a professional diplomat – go on you guessed! Rather Bruce the biceps is a political appointee, the son of a vacuum cleaner manufacturer but more importantly a fund raiser for Barack Obama. In the 2008 campaign he donated $500,000 to the cause and his wife managed $100,000.
And in America people who give money to winning campaigns get to be Ambassadors. In this America is all but unique. It is a practice only used by her, and a few burned out basket cases of countries also riddled with debt and corruption. In this America is right up there with Kazakhstan.
And they are not necessarily good at what they do. Apart from Bruce Oreck’s embarrassing Christmas card we might recall Cynthia Stroum, the Ambassador to Luxembourg who required to be withdrawn following a damaging internal report about the wreckage of her office. If Wikileaks showed us anything positive it was the complex and intricate nature of the work of the US Diplomatic corps. But hey these newbies get a whole two week How-to-be-an-ambassador course at the State Department Foreign Service institute – whether they need it or not.
I mean, would you let an amateur be your surgeon simply because he had been a prominent fund-bundler? So why have these amateurs out there representing the country?
Not that they even need to hang about all the time in some god forsaken foreign backwater. These non civil servants can always come back home to deal with their own personal business interests, all of course first class and at the United States Tax Payers’ dollar; sometimes for months at a time.
Who can we blame, for there must always be blame? Well, the politically appointed ambassador was always a feature of American diplomacy but seems to have become more entrenched in the Kennedy administration. Now both parties are at it with more than 30% of all ambassadors appointed by the US being political. Obama seems to be stretching even this enormous figure to 40% and they are not just placed in minnows of states either. Lucky old Europe sees 80%, yes that’s eighty per cent, of all ambassadors over the last four decades being these prizes for cash donations.
Often, though not always, these Ambassadors can be both fund-bundlers and also family members, thereby combining blood and money.
Take for example George Herbert Walker III born 1931, and a Skull and Bones member, (better known as “Bert”) who is President George Herbert Walker Bush’s first cousin. He was appointed United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2003 to 2006. Incidentally Walker’s son George Herbert Walker IV is CEO of Neuberger Berman and a “pioneer” or large financial contributor to the Republicans. We await his elevation in due course.
And he wasn’t the only one either.
President George Herbert Walker Bush had another cousin Dorothy who married Craig Roberts Stapelton, himself yet another prominent Bush fundraiser. For this Craig and lady Dorothy got, first the Ambassadorship of the Czech Republic from 2001 to 2004, and then the elevation to Ambassador to France from 2005 to 2009. And no, he didn’t mention his Bush family connection on his web-site either.
Incidentally his son, Walker Stapelton is presently Treasurer of the State of Colorado which is an elected office. He will hold this until 2015. We might watch his rise with interest.
Helsinki, where Brucey boy does his bodybuilding, has had five ambassadors (with long interregnums between appointments) in the last seven and a half years. One cannot feel that playing musical chairs with important diplomatic posts can do any other than damage the image of the United States abroad.
Here are just a few others to be going on with:
Louis Susman, Obama’s fundraiser to the sum of $735,000 got Great Britain as her prize.
France got first Pamela Harriman under Clinton (fee $99,000), and Obama has placed Charles Rivkin who donated $883,000 there.
Japan has John Roos a silicon valley lawyer, whose contribution of $545,000 earned him this plum and of course the eternal title of Ambassador Roos to take to the grave.
South Africa gets Donald Gips who gave $553,000 to the coffers and Spain found that $1,400,000 got them Alan Solomond.
And the French were all uppity last year about rumours that they were going to get dumped with Anna Wintour a frosty, frozen faced ex editor of Vogue, who is known lovingly as “Nuclear Wintour” and famously does not share lifts with the staff. She is said to have been the inspiration for the lead character in “The Devil wears Prada”. However, she too is a fund raiser and must be given her glittering prize.
Change you can believe in? Well that’s a lot of change certainly.
Copyright David Macadam 2013
The Oligarch Kings 
It seems most countries use this office for rewards of patronage. It’s sad that career diplomats are being shunted out. The career diplomat is then relegated to an advisory capacity.The twinkies that now get them, like the stardom. The fancy car with plates. Promised “yes-people” to political control of central office. Prior to air travel. Those twinks would never go to the places outside. For it meant loss of control, telephones and mounted messengers. Kinda spoiled the fun, of staying in political limelight. …. I imagine?
I find the various poseur pics of Mr. Oreck, amusing, but still dreck. Then Christmas is all about white house parties, etc. Not about learning the humility that the season should reflect. …… They’re bright beautiful stars! Let no-one dim that light, not even the star in the east.
Actually most countries do not use political patronage in appointing Ambassadors – this is very much an all- American thing them and a few very corrupt basket cases.
Well, it’s commonplace in Canada also. I think you’ll find many countries use the method? Like Philippines, China, African countries, N.Korea, etc. and so on. Regardless, my comments still apply to those patronage rewards. Like advancements to the upper chambers in Parliament and Judicial.
Hey OK I’ll take Canada. But I dont think that the African countries, China or North Korea are poster-boys for representative democracy. And sadly that is where America finds herself in rather dubious company.
YUP!!
Tell Oreck that there is no such ting as a “bicep.” The muscle’s name is biceps.
And its an obviously photoshopped (learn that from Obama?) left arm on the front of the picture.
Karl thanks for the comment. Now I am no expert at all on photoshop, but am assured by those who do that Bruce’s biceps are for real and he has always had a fad for this bodybuilding. Frankly thats even scarier than it being photoshopped!
The Secretary of State needs to get a handle on this….
Of course after getting an Ok from the President…
Absolutely. Once is crass twice is taking the piss.
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