Gideon Rachman floats, on his blog, the rumour that Obama might make Oprah Winfrey Ambassador to London, and no it is not April Fool’s Day. I doubt very much this will happen, there are other ambassadorships I’d expect she’d prefer, but it does illustrate a long-standing weakness in the way the United States appoints its ambassadors.
The plum jobs nearly always go to big campaign donors. This is a practise the United States cannot afford now that it is involved in a struggle for international support for its actions in a 24.7 media environment. It needs the best people for the job that it has regardless of whether they gave to the campaigns or not. Does anyone really believe that Oprah is the person best placed to explain to the British public why America felt it had to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
It certainly didn’t help that during the Iraq war, the US Ambassador to London had been picked for his campaign contributions to Bush and his interest in horse-racing. A more effective ambassador might well have been able to make the US case for removing Saddam in a clear way and ensured that the British government had an easier time working in concert with Washington.
If Obama is serious about improving the way America presents itself to the world, then he should scrap this outdated spoils system. But then having opted out of public financing, Obama has a lot of donors to reward.
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