Want to Know How to Acquire an Honorific Title or Just Become a “Top Government Official” without Starting at the Bottom? – Just Become an Obama BIG Fundraisers, Give Him a Ton of Money and Buy It!
Did you ever have a burning desire for a title? Maybe dream of being addressed as “Sir” as in “Sir Winston” or “your Lordship?” Maybe even toyed with the idea of using some spare cash to purchase a distressed British manor that comes with an “earldom?” Well fret no longer, you too can acquire a lifetime title of “The Honorable” or “Mr. Ambassador,” or even “Madam Secretary,” all you need do is bundle a bunch of cash for “Mr. President” as in President Obama. Now all Administrations have done it but this is the first one to raise it to an art form while campaign promising to make “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and constantly criticizing the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers – those volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from their rich donor cronies.
According to an 8 March 2012 article in the ultra liberal Washington Post exposing Obama’s Big Donors payoffs, more than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least half a million bucks for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees. Many of these appointees have proven to be as inept at managing as the person who appointed them – no mean feat -- which has proven costly in terms of advancing and protecting our national interests and costly for taxpayers.
At least 24 Obama bundlers have “earned” the title of “Mister or Madam Ambassador and are slaving away at such “hardship posts” as Finland, Australia, Portugal, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.
Although The Foreign Service Act of 1980, states: “contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment of an individual as a chief of mission,” the Obama administration has a disproportionate share of its ambassadors who are political appointees rather than career Foreign Service officers. Obama’s political money bag men have been rewarded with plum high ranking administration positions and ambassadorships in particular.
Obama has appointed 59 ambassadors who were not career Foreign Service Officers which prompted the president of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents career officers to say: “We think that the pendulum has swung a bit too far toward the patronage side of things,”
According to the State Department Inspector General, some of Obama’s bundler-ambassadors have had been exceptionally bad. For instance, Nicole Avant, a music industry executive who raised over $500,000, served as ambassador to the Bahamas until November. The IG reported that her tenure was part of “an extended period of dysfunctional leadership and mismanagement, which has caused problems throughout the embassy.” The IG reported “Avant spent roughly 40 percent of her time out of the country over a two-year period.” Avant’s explanation, “Part of my job as a U.S. ambassador was to travel.” Avant is now helping the Obama campaign raise money from donors in Hollywood. A position far better suited to her rather meager talents.
Another stand-out Obama bundler-ambassador was Luxembourg Ambassador Cynthia Stroum, a Seattle venture capitalist who raised $500,000 for Obama. The IG reported “she sent her staff on a house-hunting mission, billed the government for bedding after being told she couldn’t” and was “keenly interested” in the materials used for remodeling two bathrooms in her residence. Her “subjects” described her “as aggressive, bullying, hostile, and intimidating,” She was replaced by another bundler, Robert Mandell, a Florida real estate developer who raised over $500,000 for Obama’s campaign. Seems $500,000 is the “selling price” for a plum Obama appointment.
But high ranking Obama bundler-appointees are not limited to just ambassadorships, others include Attorney General Eric Holder as well as Julius Genachowski, the Federal Communications Commission chairman. Don’t forget Obama bundler Steve Spinner was the Obama White House Energy Department liaison who, according to internal White House e-mails turned over to congressional investigations, orchestrated the government loan to Solyndra which left taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans when the now-shuttered solar company went belly-up. Don’t forget that $535M “donation” was a payback to another campaign bundler, Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, Solyndra’s major investor who, in violation of Federal statute, the Administration allowed to get “in front of the Government” to recover his investment while leaving us Taxpayers “holding the bag.”
Bottom line, why bother spending years starting at the bottom working your way up through the Foreign Service ranks to become an ambassador to some backwater place like Botswana or Azerbaijan when all you have to do is “dial-for-dollars” to get the lush posts like England or Australia. Why slave as a career Civil Servant where, with exceptional luck and talant, you may become a mid-level functionary when “bundling bucks” for Obama lets you not only Start at the Top but for the rest of your life you will be addressed as “Mister or Madam Secretary” or “The Honorable …”
Is this a Great Country or what?
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