{"id":4102,"date":"2014-02-07T11:17:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T16:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=4102"},"modified":"2014-02-07T11:17:39","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T16:17:39","slug":"nominee-for-ambassador-to-argentina-hasnt-been-there-but-has-raised-lots-of-money-for-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2014\/02\/07\/nominee-for-ambassador-to-argentina-hasnt-been-there-but-has-raised-lots-of-money-for-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Nominee for Ambassador to Argentina Hasn’t Been There, but Has Raised Lots of Money for Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filibuster reform has taken away the tool Republicans used to hold up President Obama’s nomines for non-lifetime posts. The party has adapted to this reality with a tactic much appreciated by journalists: public shaming. Today’s example is the confirmation hearing of Noah Bryson Mamet, who’s up for ambassador to Argentina and who bundled at least $500,000<\/a> for the Obama campaign, according to the Center for Public Integrity. He has not, as Marco Rubio found during questioning, been to Argentina.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Obviously, a diplomatic posting in Buenos Aires is an enviable gig, probably one of the few dozen best ambassador gigs in the world. But this is a hell of a time to take it. Argentina, like a lot of next-wave developing nations, failed to build the sort of foreign currency reserve that would have sheltered it from the current slump. (Also in this category: South Africa, Turkey, Venezuela.) Delicate times, probably opportune times for a diplomat with years logged in South America.<\/p>\n

Mamet’s confirmation didn’t go as poorly as the one for George James Tsunis<\/a>, nominated for a posting in Oslo, then accidentally too ready to admit he didn’t know basic facts about Norway.* He may not become like Nicole Avant, an Obama 2008 finance chair for Southern California who went to the Bahamas and was absent from the embassy<\/a> about 40 percent of the time.<\/p>\n

*Correction, Feb. 7, 2014:<\/strong> This post originally misspelled George James Tsunis’ last name.<\/em><\/p>\n

via Weigel http:\/\/ift.tt\/LEzmsU<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filibuster reform has taken away the tool Republicans used to hold up President Obama’s nomines for non-lifetime posts. The party has adapted to this reality with a tactic much appreciated by journalists: public shaming. Today’s example is the confirmation hearing of Noah Bryson Mamet, who’s up for ambassador to Argentina and who bundled at least … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Nominee for Ambassador to Argentina Hasn’t Been There, but Has Raised Lots of Money for Obama”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1031,6,1032,1033],"class_list":["post-4102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-feedly","tag-ifttt","tag-recently-read","tag-saved-for-later"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-14a","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}