U.S. Embassies Have Always Been for Sale

Obama may be getting flak for giving prestigious foreign posts to big-time donors rather than professional diplomats, but a new book shows that's been the American way since the country's founding. At the beginning of December, Senator John McCain had gotten the chattering class in Washington tut-tutting about the ethically dubious relationship between money and influence, by justifiably humiliating the Obama administration's nominee for ambassador to Hungary, Colleen Bradley Bell, a soap-opera producer and top bundler.

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