Right Winger Named to Head World Food Program

Read the full article by Colum Lynch in The Washington Post, November 8, 2006.

This story should not be lost in the enthusiasm over the election results.

Josette Sheeran, a senior U.S. State Department official and former managing editor of the Washington Times, was chosen Tuesday to head the United Nations' Rome-based World Food Program for a five-year term.

Sheeran, the U.S. undersecretary of state for economics, business and agricultural affairs, will replace American James T. Morris, who plans to step down around the end of the year. She will take charge of the United Nations' largest humanitarian institution, which feeds about 90 million people in about 80 of the world's poorest countries.......

John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, welcomed the appointment, saying he looked forward to Sheeran's leadership of the World Food Program. "She's obviously an extraordinarily well-qualified candidate," Bolton said.......

The Bush administration was sensitive to the possibility that Sheeran's former membership in the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church would emerge as an issue in the race. A U.S. official pressed The Washington Post not to mention Sheeran's past links to the church, saying it was inappropriate to describe her religious affiliation.

According to Wikipedia:

The Times was founded in 1982 by Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church and the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, to be a conservative alternative to the larger Washington Post.