Quote Originally Posted by Franconicus
Want To Become Bush's Next Ambassador?

By Georg Mascolo

Want to become a US ambassador? It's not as hard as you may think. Just donate a couple of hundred thousand to President George W. Bush's campaign coffers and pick your city. The president's new cadre of diplomats tend to be generous campaign donors, including the wealthy Ohio ball-bearing manufacture who is expected to run the US Embassy in Berlin.

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http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...362387,00.html


Ambassador's have always been selected under whatever criteria the President wishes to use. Hell I image other countries pick ambassador's using similiar if not worse criteria. From the same article in which you linked.

And the price for a ticket into the diplomatic corps is high -- at least six figures according to an unwritten rule that's been in place ever since Richard Nixon was in the White House. Back then, the president instructed his chief of staff that "anybody who wants to be an ambassador must at least give $250,000."

Former US President Bill Clinton also used campaign contributions as a factor when choosing political appointees -- albeit not nearly to the same degree as the current president