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 Posté le: Dim 18 Jan 2009 11:20 Sujet du message: Oprah Winfrey future ambassadrice à Pretoria ? |
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| Citation: | Oprah Winfrey future ambassadrice à Pretoria ?
Article publié le 17/01/2009 Dernière mise à jour le 17/01/2009 à 20:38
TU
http://www.rfi.fr/actufr/articles/109/article_77477.asp
L’obamania interplanétaire enfle à l’approche de l’investiture du premier président noir des Etats-Unis mardi, et dans la nation « arc-en-ciel », on se prend à rêver et on évoque le nom d’Oprah Winfrey, la star noire américaine pour remplacer l’ambassadeur américain en Afrique du Sud. Winfrey s’était beaucoup investie durant la campagne d’Obama. Dans on édition d’aujourd’hui, l’hebdomadaire sud-africain de référence, le Mail and Guardian, consacre un long article à l’arrivée éventuelle de la star TV noire américaine à Pretoria.
Comment combler une femme qui a déjà tout ? « Et pourquoi pas une ambassade », écrit Mandy Rossouw dans l’hebdomadaire Mail and Gardian. Un diplomate américain a confié à la journaliste « Oprah adore le pays, d’ailleurs c’est ici qu’elle a choisi de fonder son académie pour filles défavorisées ».
Il faut trouver un remplaçant à l’ambassadeur actuel, car Eric Bost, a été nommé par George Bush, et il est sur le départ, donc pourquoi pas Oprah ? Bien sûr, le salaire d’un ambassadeur est dérisoire comparé aux droits TV du Oprah Winfrey Show, et du O magazine. Mais son coach Bob Greene aurait dit qu’elle ne croquait plus la vie à pleine dents comme avant.
D’après l’article, Oprah a justement pris goût à la vie politique. Elle figure parmi les premières personnalités du show business à s’être engagée en faveur de Barack Obama. L’ambassade américaine s’est abstenue de tout commentaires, la porte-parole a tout de même expliqué que la procédure de nominations pour les ambassadeurs était tortueuse. L’entourage d’Oprah a réfuté ces rumeurs…
Winfrey doit son succès à son franc-parler, il lui faudrait s’inscrire très très vite, à un stage d’initiation aux circonlocutions diplomatiques. |
On rétribue les amis, Mélange des genres: Diplomatie/show bizz ou autre!!! Ce ne serait pas la première fois et va falloir s'y habituer de toute façon!!!
| Citation: | Envoy can be enviable gig
But diplomats are asking Obama to limit granting of plum posts to pals
By Bay Fang | Washington Bureau
November 14, 2008
WASHINGTON — Craig Stapleton, the U.S. ambassador to France, co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with the future President George W. Bush and served as the Connecticut state chairman for Bush's re-election campaign.
Robert Tuttle, the U.S. ambassador in London, is a multimillionaire car dealer and Bush "pioneer," one of a select group who has raised at least $100,000 for Bush.
Peter Coneway, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and former head of the Houston office of Goldman Sachs, also is one of those pioneers and a close Bush friend.
Will these names be replaced in the next administration by those of friends, political allies and benefactors of President-elect Barack Obama—say, Caroline Kennedy, the influential Democrat and daughter of JFK? Or how about Chicago's Penny Pritzker, the Obama campaign's national finance chairwoman? Or Oprah Winfrey, whose support also was a big help during the campaign?
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Following the President-elect's run Video The foreign service establishment, which produces experienced career diplomats who covet those jobs and believe they deserve them more, hopes not. For the first time, the diplomats are asking for limits on the inevitable list of political appointees dispatched around the globe by the new president.
"Diplomacy is too serious of a business to give away," said Ronald Neumann, who served in Baghdad and was ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-2007. The organization he now heads, the American Academy of Diplomacy, sent a letter to the presidential campaigns of both Obama and John McCain this year, urging them to limit political appointments to 10 percent of the more than 200 varied ambassador positions.
The parceling of those postings as spoils of victory has a long history in the U.S. Since the Kennedy era, both Democratic and Republican administrations have given away about one-third of ambassadorships as political rewards.
These posts are the so-called "plums," such as London, Paris and other West European capitals. While important, they tend not to be the trickiest hot spots—such as Moscow, Tel Aviv or Islamabad—where more seasoned envoys are needed to represent U.S. interests, promote American commerce and protect U.S. citizens abroad.
Caroline Kennedy's grandfather Joseph, a prominent businessman, served briefly as the U.S. ambassador to Britain—officially known as the Court of St. James' — at the start of World War II.
Then there are the more temperate spots, such as New Zealand, where President Bill Clinton dispatched former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun to be the top U.S. envoy in 1999 after she lost her Illinois Senate seat.
During the Clinton years, the posts also were filled by such FOBs (Friends of Bill) as Felix Rohatyn, the investment banker turned envoy to France who along with his wife contributed an estimated $600,000 to Clinton and the Democratic Party in the era before campaign finance reform.
"It is the last vestige of the patronage system for federal jobs," said Tex Harris, former president of the American Foreign Service Association.
The Obama transition team has not yet addressed the ambassadorships, and appointments often don't occur until after inauguration day. But that has not slowed the inevitable hashing out of who might deserve or want the posts, and among the names being bandied about are Pritzker and Winfrey, who are close to Obama but have successful careers they might not want to give up.
A spokeswoman for Winfrey said she had not been offered a position and would not speculate on whether she would consider one. Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt Hotel chain, could not be reached for comment. An Obama transition spokesman said the team would have no comment either.
This year marks the first time the 25-year-old academy of diplomacy has called for fewer political appointees, citing the number of foreign challenges facing the incoming administration. "The world situation is as complicated as it's ever been, and the State Department is grossly understaffed—so it's that much more important that its leaders be high quality," Neumann said.
Not to say that political appointees can't make for good ambassadors. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, prefer to have politically appointed envoys because they believe it gives them better access to the president. And some appointees have proved to be formidable diplomats, despite minimal training.
But the political appointments also have led to some embarrassing moments in diplomatic lore, such as the time the ambassador to an African nation was caught importing marijuana through his diplomatic pouch, or the ambassador to Switzerland who thought the country's three official languages were French, German and Romanian, according to career diplomats.
"We sent an ambassador to France who did not speak French," Harris said. "Can you imagine if the French sent an ambassador to the U.S. who did not speak English?"
Although the regular diplomats hope Obama will change the pattern, it may be easier said than done.
"It will be difficult for Obama not to make the same kinds of decisions that Bush did," said David Lewis, a professor at Vanderbilt University and author of "The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance."
He said there could be a number of campaign intimates or big-donation "bundlers" who now expect to be rewarded with a plum.
"Obama mobilized an incredible number of people to work on the campaign, and many didn't do it completely for altruistic reasons," he said.
bfang@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-ambassador_fangnov14,0,2950754.story |
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