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> All US ambassadorships are political appointment, therefore option 2 is the only answer. These positions are almost always ceremonial. They are there to execu
by Seenso 7y ago
> All US ambassadorships are political appointment, therefore option 2 is the only answer. These positions are almost always ceremonial. They are there to execute the will of the president.
Not really, a foreign service officer can be appointed by a president to be an ambassador. A recent example from the news is Marie Yovanovitch. In regular times, my impression was that foreign service officers were appointed to the more difficult and critical ambassadorships (e.g. Ambassador to the USSR), and friends of the president were appointed to "easy" ambassadorships (e.g. to a staunch ally with a fashionable capital).
- yardie 7y agoA president can appoint a politically connected friend or choose one from the diplomatic corp. But in any case they are all political appointments selected by the president. Now, for sensitive countries you want a specialist. Like your probably not sending golfing buddies to broker Israel/Palestine peace agreements. But they'll probably do alright being the Ambassador to Belgium or Canada. Those embassies are practically on rails.
- mtnGoat 7y agoIn this case instead of a golfing buddy, his son-in-law was appointed to deal with Israel/Palestine. Nepotism is a problem, as is cronyism.