Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Meet the new ambasador


Excerpt from Bloomberg (www.bloomberg.com)

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Who is Colleen Bell? Bell is a soap opera producer -- “The Bold and the Beautiful” is her masterwork -- who was nominated by Barack Obama's administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Hungary. Bell, one of Obama’s larger fundraising “bundlers,” bought this nomination with more than $500,000 of mostly other people’s money.

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Editor's note: Colleen Bell, the new U.S. ambassador to Hungary has already generated a lot of controversy. She has been accused by a Hungarian ruling party lawmaker of "ignorance" and bias after she expressed concern about the so-called erosion of democracy and so-called rise of extremism in Hungary. She told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 16, 2014, that while Hungary was a strong ally, a perceived erosion of democratic checks and balances under Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his ruling centre-right Fidesz Party gave grounds for concern. 

You'll see that Colleen Bell has no political/diplomatic experience and has absolutely no knowledge or background on Hungary, yet she makes such an "assumption". This is all because in recent years, the post for ambassador has gone to so-called “political” appointees, who are largely personal relations or fundraisers of U.S. presidents, rather than career diplomats.