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By Dave Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer
The White House, in a statement released Monday, Nov. 9, announced its nomination of Stanford University scholar and Portola Valley resident Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe to the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ms. Donahoe chaired the National Women for Obama Finance Committee during Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency. As a candidate, Mr. Obama visited Ms. Donahoe’s home in February 2007 for a one-night fundraiser that took in $453,000.
The Senate must confirm Ms. Donahoe’s nomination.
Ms. Donahoe, an attorney, has a law degree and a master’s degree in East Asian studies from Stanford, a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard University, and a doctorate in ethics and social theory from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California at Berkeley, according to her online biography at Stanford’s Web site. She is married to eBay chief executive John Donahoe.
Ms. Donahoe studied Mandarin for a year in China, clerked for Judge William H. Orrick at the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California, and practiced high-tech litigation for the Palo Alto law firm Fenwick & West, according to the biography.
Her career includes research on the nexus of U.S. foreign policy and human rights for The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and strategies on the human rights of women and children for Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund.
Ms. Donahoe is an affiliate scholar with Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, where her research interests include the evolution on the use of military force, U.N. reform, and the international rule of law.
Among her colleagues at CISAC are former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and two retired U.S. Army generals: John Abizaid, a former commander in Iraq; and Wesley Clark, who led NATO military operations in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Price of Ambassadorship = $453,000.
Business as usual in Washington.
Bottomline–she chaired the National Women for Obama committee and hosted a fundraiser that pulled in $453K for Obama–She and her husband likely matched that or better as well. That’s the price tag for a sweet gig in Switzerland, regardless of your party affiliation – Change? Yea, right!
Have either one of you posters taken a look at the woman’s credentials? Her background, education, and work on human rights issues? What simplistic nonsense you posit.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Big money, buys power and position.
Donahoe’s qualifications are a heck of lot better than those of local resident and former ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, Shirley Temple Black.
Of course Donahoe doesn’t have the qualification of a drink named after her.
A plus – for all the good the UN Human Wrongs Council does, Donahoe has an in to have it auctioned off on eBay. As if any respectable person would want to bid for it.
“Credentials” — she has a boatload of grad degrees which required her to spend at least 12 years in various universities after college, plus that year of studying Mandarin in China. That doesn’t show someone is qualified for anything, just rich.
Positive Change, would you be so quick to defend this appointment if it had been made by Bush?
“Change, What Change,” It’s interesting that you interpret my post as a defense of this appointment. Let me clarify: My post was calling you and the other poster to task for your snarling judgments that completely ignore any real qualifications this woman might have to make her a legitimate nominee. That’s not a defense of the appointment. It’s a criticism of your cynicism and knee-jerk impulse to attack and destroy.
And “not impressed,” no credentials? Did you read the article? Let me help. The article states:
“Her career includes research on the nexus of U.S. foreign policy and human rights for The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and strategies on the human rights of women and children for Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund.”
And notice, please, that it says her career “includes…”. Maybe she’s done even more in the field of human rights. I don’t know. But unless I did know more about her, I certainly wouldn’t make grandiose proclamations about her nomination, and I don’t understand the impulse to attack another person without having a clue as to what the person is all about.
She certainly has an impressive resume. Let’s hope she can be as effective in action as she is on paper, and can help right the ship. She and others involved in human rights issues in the Obama administration have got a huge task ahead of them.
Looook… maybe she will be a great spy for the CIA. There’s lots of terrorists running around Geneva. Maybe Bin Laden lives there in a cave under an expensive restaurant. Give her a magnifying class and a secret code name and let her have a go of it.
Why wouldn’t a politician want to utilize the talents of someone who has shown that they support the candidate’s ideals and that they are effective at making things happen?
I don’t understand why raising funds for something you believe in should rule one out for further service. I would want to seek out individuals who support my beliefs, who I have some first hand knowledge of, and who seem to want to serve.
Under George W. Bush, we learned the consequences of appointing people to positions for which they were not qualified. (“Heckuva job, Brownie,” John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, …) Republicans (and their Libertarian cousins) have a hard time making the case that they are fit to govern, which is probably why they like to talk about dismantling government.
But, in the Bush administration at least, when they got into office, rather than dismantling government, they took to feathering their nests and those of their partners in … is hypocrisy too strong a word? I’ll float it out there and see if anyone objects.
Republicans can’t govern. That’s what is disorienting to some on this thread. Obama is hiring people qualified for the job of governing.
To Not Impressed-well said.
To Another perspective-also, well said-and to my previous point, nothing new here, no change, just politics as usual.