Hey, remember when Barack Obama the candidate promised to change Washington? On that front, he did change the D.C. landscape; however, one thing hasn’t changed since I can remember: giving big donors ambassadorships.

To give you an idea of how prevalent this “Ambassadorgate” is, here’s a short list of the donors:

• Beatrice Wilkinson Welters. A longtime advocate for underprivileged children and her husband, Anthony, an executive with UnitedHealth Group, generated between $200,000 and $500,000 in donations to Obama’s presidential campaign and an additional $100,000 for his Inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks political giving.
• Charles H. Rivkin. A Los Angeles-based children’s television executive and an $800,000 bundler is in Paris.
• Alan Solomont, a Boston-based investor and $500,000 bundler, is in Madrid.
• Louis B. Susman, a Chicago investor and $500,000 bundler, is in London.
• Don Beyer, a Virginia Volvo dealer and $745,000 bundler, is in Bern, Switzerland.
• Nicole Avant, a member of a Motown family dynasty who is credited with bundling up to $800,000 for Obama, was granted the coveted and cushy ambassadorship in Nassau, Bahamas.
• Philip Murphy. Former finance chairman for the DNC who has since 1989 donated nearly $1.5 million th the party; he is currently Ambassador to Germany.
• Anne Slaughter Andrew. An environmental attorney whose husband, Joe, is a former DNC chairman who provided a well-timed endorsement of Obama during the extended 2008 primary against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.

I’m certain there are others not mentioned here, but you get an idea how prevalent this is.

And the sad part about this is the fact that this has been going on since the 1960’s; it is if great concern in light of the current world situation. Folks, there is a good reason why ambassadorships should be earned by qualified individuals such as career foreign service officers, as opposed to deep-pocketed people. These posts at one time were more ceremonial than anything else; however, the modern day ambassador has to deal with issues such as:

• The rise of terrorism.
• The need for greater coordination between between the U.S. and foreign governments on national security issues.
• Human and drug trafficking.
• Kidnappings.
• War and intelligence sharing.

Now you understand why the aforementioned individuals who were appointed to these diplomatic posts are grossly underqualified, except that they donated huge sums of money to the Obama campaign. Granted, some of the donors did exercise some diplomacy in the corporate arena. Yet, this is again a case of, “Money talks and b******* walks.” I do not know if it has ever been brought up in Congress, but perhaps there is a need for ambassadorship reform. If ever there was a time for it, that would be right now.