The State Department defended controversial ambassador nominees approved by the Senate on Tuesday, saying that the practice of appointing campaign fundraisers as envoys is par for the course in Washington.
Two boosters of President Obama, Noah Mamet and Colleen Bell, will be lead the US embassies in Argentina and Hungary. Mamet, a political consultant, and Bell, a producer of the soap opera “The Bold and The Beautiful”, were panned by Republicans for lacking relevant qualifications, given the countries’ relative significance on the world stage.
Mamet was approved by a 50-43 vote. Bell’s nomination passed by 52-42.
State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said that the Obama administration’s “ratio of political to career nominees is in line with previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat.” That proportion, she said, is “about seventy to thirty.”
When asked to respond specifically to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) criticism of Bell, given the armed conflict in neighboring Ukraine, Harf listed her professional accomplishments.
“She’s a philanthropist, a civic leader, an accomplished businesswoman, an advocate for preservation of the arts, a working mother, [and] a powerful voice on children’s rights. She’s a founding member of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s leadership council, serves as a trustee on a number of boards. She has worked managing large diverse staffs for companies. She has served various leadership roles and will be a very good ambassador, I am confident, to Hungary.”
Mamet, too, has come under fire from Republicans for lacking proficiency in Spanish and for having never traveled to Argentina. Harf claimed, however, that “prior travel to a post has not been an indication of a nominee’s success, in the past.”
Argentina is particularly seen as an inappropriate position for a political nominee, as The Sentinel discussed Monday, due mainly to an ongoing legal battle between Buenos Aires and Wall Street vulture fund financiers.
In addition to bordering Ukraine, Hungary is monitored by international observers for playing host to a recent sharp rise in antisemitism. The popularity of the far-right Jobbik party in light of recent economic woes explain the phenomenon, according to Jews and academics who spoke to Reuters in May. Hungary’s Jewish community makes up roughly 1 percent of its population.
Two other ambassador nominees also testified in confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. If approved by the Senate, Richard Verma and Michael McKinley would be the top US envoys to India and Afghanistan.
