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by dalke
3570 days ago
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Perhaps http://www.opensecrets.org/obama/ambassadors.php ? > 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." |
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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...