Do You See a Pattern in Bush Appointments?

Today's Washington Post (WP) has a lead article on the resignation in disgrace of Randell Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid.

WP also has an article implying that Paul Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank, will be accused of a serious breach of ethics by a panel investigating his service. Yesterday WP ran an article that stated:

Under a diplomatic arrangement in effect since the creation of the World Bank in 1944, the U.S. president has the right to appoint the chief of the institution. Europe has the power to appoint the head of the bank's affiliate, the International Monetary Fund.....

If the board ultimately votes to remove Wolfowitz, a Bush administration official said it would jeopardize the governing arrangements of other international financial institutions, including Europe's right to appoint the leader of the IMF and Japan's authority to name the head of the Asian Development Bank.

Yesterday I posted a message that the European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics has urged Ellen R. Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, to withdraw from a meeting that it considered inappropriate for formal participation by a U.S. government senior official. I have documented over some time the controversy over Sauerbrey's qualifications and political views (Search my blog with the term "Sauerbrey"). One of those prior postings also dealt with the controversial nomination of Julie L. Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security, in a maneuver circumventing the need for approval by the Senate.

Yesterday I posted on the appointment of Cristina Beato as deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, another appointment that by diplomatic tradition is under the control of the President of the United States. Beato is another controversial Bushie, whose appointment as Assistant Secretary for Health foundered on charges that her resume had been inflated. (I once posted that the Office of Global Health Affairs of the Department of Health and Human Services, early in the Bush administration. required all Department staff seeking to visit PAHO headquarters in Washington D.C. to apply for foreign travel permission to do so; search this blog with the term "Steiger" for other examples of that offices international work in the Bush Administration.)

Look too at my posting on the Bush administration nomination of Josette Sheeran (Shiner) to head the U.N. World Food Program, another intergovernmental program whose head is by tradition appointed by the U.S. Government. Sheeran was once managing editor of the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, founded in 1982 by Sun Myung Moon.

Ann Margaret Veneman, the Bush administration's nominee who became the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), was also controversial, seen to have been chosen for her political ties rather than her expertise in the important areas covered by UNICEF.

Peter Smith, who was the highest ranking American in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as Assistant Director General for Education, also recently resigned amid controversy including an audit report that implied improprieties and ethical lapses on his watch. (Click here to read more on that case.)

Then of course there was the case of John Bolton, the controversial Bush administration insider, who resigned his recess appointment as Ambassador to the United Nations when it became apparent that he would not be confirmed in that post by the Senate, having lost the support not only of the Democrats, but of my Republicans. He is notable, among many other actions, for asking the deletion of all references to the Millennium Development Goals from the documentation that was being prepared for the 2005 United Nations Summit meeting.