It seems that the Holy See does not want Caroline Kennedy as the American Ambassador, perhaps because of her (pro-choice) politics regarding abortion. This unpleasant situation reinforces my long-held conviction that it is a mistake for the United States to send Catholic ambassadors to the Vatican, or Jews to Israel, or Latinos to Latin America, and so forth. No Italian American should be ambassador to Italy, no Russian American should be sent to Moscow, no Indian American to India.
The Kennedy nomination shows why: nominating an American Catholic risks putting our ambassador in a very uncomfortable and perhaps even severely conflicted bind, in which he may have to choose between aggressively carrying out our policy or offending a foreign leader who holds emotional and perhaps even moral sway over him. Why should a Catholic be placed in potential conflict with the Pope? Why should a Jew be placed in potential conflict with the Jewish state?
If a non-Catholic were nominated, the abortion issue would be irrelevant, as it should be. Our ambassador is the president’s representative to the Vatican, pure and simple. He should not be in a position where he could be accused of betraying his faith, or his race, or his roots. It makes his job even more difficult, and much more political than it should be.
Moreover, the foreign countries know full well that we are pandering when we send one of “their own.” By and large, the most effective American ambassadors I have known are those who know how to get things done, which usually means they have a good relationship with the president, the national security adviser, and the secretaries of state and defense. That’s what foreign leaders want, really. Language skills, cultural/ethnic/religious background doesn’t matter nearly so much, if at all.
So send Caroline Kennedy to, say, Johannesburg/Pretoria. Send black Americans to Europe. Send Irishmen to South America, Jews to Japan and Singapore. And stop this phony catering to what we wrongly imagine to be the politically correct desires of other governments. We’re supposed to act like Americans. You know, as if we didn’t care where your grandmother came from.
I don’t think President Panty-Waist Obama (not my words though. I copied it from here http://tinyurl.com/cmcp37 ) care about these. He’s busy disarming America to appease/please the United States sworn enemies.
Sorry, this is the correct link. http://tinyurl.com/c2juqw
Clearly I’m missing something – where did this need to keep Caroline Kennedy occupied with government appointments come from? First the Senate seat, now this. What’s next? Why is she so indispensible all of a sudden?
I think we should clone John Bolton and send him EVERYWHERE. (With a Colt Peacemaker in a side holster.) “I’m sorry your Highness… you were saying about our Navy?“
No doubt, they will be in position where they could be accused of betraying their faith, or their roots, or their race. But on the other hand, we know that General John Abizaid who was the most senior U.S. military officer of direct Arab descent, and also Mr. Amb, Zalmay Khalilzad, was the highest-ranking Afghan American and Muslim in the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the U.S. Ambassador to the blind organization “UN”.
I think they are enough patriots and honest to the US greatness more than those who have an American deep-roots.
***A world without tyrannical regimes & without fundamentalist Islam***
#Ran: Of course America lacks to people such as Mr. Bolton. Mr. Bolton is a very rare man in the west. Mr. Bolton is a brave man and unhypocrite.
***A world without tyrannical regimes & without fundamentalist Islam***
The Vatican is not a “real” government. It’s simply the headquarters of the Catholic Church. This places everyone in a awkward situation. What is an American ambassador actually supposed to do while carrying out their duties? The Pope does not have any soldiers or a genuine national economy. No, we need to treat the Vatican as an exceptional situation. It’s the only one of its kind in the entire world—and send ambassadors who will not offend their host.
Michael, on this I disagree. Seeing that people are sent as ambassadors, and that people are only partially definable, sending anyone pro-choice to the Vatican is as explosive as graffiti on war memorials.
Why not send people who command respect, so that the country sending the ambassador (for instance) benefits.
It reminds me of a story that Rosenberg, or Sharansky, put in their latest book: a Jewish staffer of Scoop Jackson was working on a Jewish holiday, and the Senator asked him why is he working on a Jewish holiday. He said that work needed to be done. Well, Scoop’s reply was, by being a good Jew, you can be a good American.
Plus, in “Chariots of Fire”, we find that Eric Liddell (one of Great Britain’s sprinters in the Paris Olympics),
defied the British Olympic Committee, and he won. One of the committee members said, in so many words, that no cause is greater than a person’s conscience.
Absolutely. At first I felt that your idea disrespected the profound pro-life stance of the Vatican, but then I realized your idea actually frees religion from politics, as we ought.
Next, let’s free our legal system from the ideological identity politics of bias crime laws. Obviously, healthy fences make healthy values, to paraphrase Frost.
Q. “Why should a Catholic be placed in potential conflict with the Pope?”
A. Mr. Ledeen, the premises of your question are wrong. Caroline Kennedy, like many other cafeteria Catholics who serve the culture of death, put herself “in… conflict with the Pope” (and the Church and Christ).
Also, any country can refuse to receive someone sent to it as a potential ambassador. An ambassadorship’s function is not resume-polishing for the politically well-connected but to foster cordial relations between two states. Caroline Kennedy fails in this regard because her reputation for public disregard for a very basic teaching of the Church would create scandal for the Christian city-state of the Vatican.
I suggest that Obama grow up and stop his college-prank appointments to ambassadorships. It’s not the “smart diplomacy” Obama promised, instead it’s insulting.
Now, as for the issue of whether people who lack a deep understanding of a country’s predominant cultural or religious beliefs should be appointed to embassy leadership posts and be U.S. ambassadors, I refer you to the book The Ugly American. Although the MSM promoted the use of the phrase “Ugly American” to mock U.S. tourists abroad, in the book from which the MSM stole that appellation those who were portrayed as the (figuratively) Ugly American types were U.S. Government officials, especially State Department ambassadors.
Sure, there’s some people in America who have a deep understanding of Catholic Christian or Jewish beliefs, who don’t mock those beliefs with personal and public pro-abortion or anti-semitic policy pronouncements, and who could serve as competent ambassadors yet aren’t Catholic or Jewish themselves. So, why won’t Obama find and vet such people, eh?