Graft

Two Bush-appointed nominees for full-term ambassadorships come up before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this afternoon. One of them is thoroughly qualified for the position he's been nominated for. The other? Well, not so much.

The first one is "Curtis S. Chin, of New York, to be United States Director of the Asian Development Bank, with the rank of Ambassador." Chin's got a rock-solid resume with lots of international finance and govermental experience. He's even held posts in the administrations of both Bushes. So he's probably a pretty good get for the gig.

But the other one, though: "Sam Fox, of Missouri, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Belgium." Argh. That is a whole kettle of fish of a different color.

Fox has no foreign policy background and no experience working in the government. He admits this himself, along with the fact that he can’t speak Dutch or French proficiently either. What he knows about Belgium you could probably fit into one Wikipedia entry, and it's likely to be just about as accurate too.

What Sam Fox has, though, is a lot of money. A whole lot of money. And he knows how to get his hands on even more money than that. He's taken blatant advantage of every possible dodge and legal loophole in the campaign finance laws to funnel soft money to, through, and around the Bush/GOP campaigns for many years. And you can bet they're mighty happy about that.