New US Ambassador to Hungary has Obama’s confidence, says White House press secy
Washington DC, December 3 (MTI) – The new United States Ambassador to Hungary Colleen Bell has President Barack Obama’s confidence that she will do an excellent job of representing the US, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said at a press conference.
Bell was approved by the US Senate on Tuesday 52-42.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry had already issued an agreement to Bell’s appointment last autumn.
The White House Secretary was asked by ABC News chief Jon Karl what exactly did Obama campaign donor and former soap opera producer Bell have in terms of qualifications for becoming the US Ambassador to Hungary and whether it was because she had raised “hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President’s reelection campaign”.
“Ambassador Bell has the president’s confidence that she will do an excellent job representing the US and maintaining the important relationship the US has with the government and the people of Hungary,” Earnest said.
After Karl noted that “in her confirmation hearing, she couldn’t even name a single strategic interest the United States had with Hungary”, Earnest said that “she certainly is somebody, again, that has had her own distinguished private sector career” and “obviously has succeeded in, you know, in the business world.”
Karl asked again, “As a soap opera producer?”.
Earnest responded, “As somebody who obviously has succeeded in the business world and she is somebody that the president has confidence will be able to maintain our relationship with the government and the people of Hungary.”
Prior to the final vote on Bell’s appointment on Tuesday, Republican Senator John McCain said Bell, a soap opera producer and bundler for President Obama’s campaigns, is “unqualified” to represent the US as an ambassador to Hungary.
“We’re about to vote on a totally unqualified individual to be ambassador to a nation which is very important to our national security interest,” McCain said.
“Her qualifications are as a producer of the television soap opera ‘The Bold and The Beautiful,’ contributed 800,000 dollars to Obama in the last election and bundled more than 2.1 million dollars for President Obama’s re-election effort,” he added.
“I am not against political appointees … I understand how the game is played, but here we are, a nation that is on the verge of ceding its sovereignty to a neo-fascist dictator getting in bed with Vladimir Putin and we’re going to send the producer of ‘The Bold and The Beautiful’ as the ambassador,” McCain said. “I urge my colleagues to put a stop to this foolishness. I urge a no vote.”
Photo: nyelvtanulas-kulfoldon.blog.hu
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters
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