What the Butler Saw

Interesting piece in the July/August issue of Mother Jones magazine: a list of ambassadorships George W. Bush has granted to his biggest financial supporters since he assumed the presidentiary. 5 of the 19 new ambassadors have baseball ownership connections, including 3 with Bush's home state Texas Rangers: George Argyos (former Mariners owner, ambassador to Spain); Mercer Reynolds III (part of the ownership group for the Rangers and Cardinals, ambassador to Switzerland); Stephen Brauser (co-owner of the Cardinals, ambassador to Belgium); Jeffrey Marcus (Rangers co-owner, lasted just 4 days as ambassador to Belgium); Craig Stapleton (former Rangers co-owner, ambassador to Czech Republic).

Argyos got the best return on his $123,000 investment -- he's still serving in Spain. Reynolds, Brauser and Marcus spent in excess of $275,000 to get their cushy positions in Europe and are back to baseball. And Stapleton grabbed his two-year appointment for only $60,500, though he's married to Dubya's cousin Dorothy. Mother Jones writer Benjamin Leslie also points out that none of the five were fluent in their country's native tongues. Why bother flushing $50,000 down the toilet with a graduate degree in public policy, sweating out the foreign service exam and busting your hump to achieve competency in one or more foreign languages? Even with a distinguished service record, you'll still find yourself building transistor radios out of coconuts somewhere in Bumfuckistan. Just buy an ownership share in a baseball team and pucker up. Who knew it was that easy?