Donations & Ambassadors

This is a great blog post from Open Secrets (which aims to bring more transparency to political donations and their connections to how DC works).  In fact 26 nominated or current ambassadors gave money to Obama, the Democratic National Committee or members of Congress.  The current ambassador to Great Britain, Matthew Barzun bundled $1.2 million for Obama.  The ambassadors for Iceland and New Zealand raised a collective $1.6 million.    Of course some posts require ambassadors to pay for social engagements out of pocket.   The last two articles points out that 31% of ambassadors are political and none go to more sensitive places like Egypt and Iraq.  There are rare exceptions to the donation rule.  When I was in high school and living in Paris our ambassador was Arthur Hartman who was a career diplomat - but I believe he was the last career person and that was back in the early 80s.