Webster Smith's Former Attorney, Ronald Machen, Was A Good Man, Once

                                       

The Obama Administration’s latest gift to Lois Lerner, the former IRS tax-exempt chief, came recently when U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen informed the House of Representatives that he would not file charges on its formal contempt citation against Ms. Lerner. This absolution, which shields Ms. Lerner from a grand jury probe, came on Ronald Machen’s final day on the job. Then he pulled a quick disappearing act.

                                                            (Ronald Machen)
To review the Facts:
Ronald Machen is no stranger to high profile cases, and he has taken his share to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He represented former Coast Guard Academy cadet, Webster Smith in his efforts to overturn his 2006 court-martial conviction.
(https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com)


    (Lois Lerner)
 If Americans know anything about the IRS it’s that it accepts no excuses, and so they trudged wearily on Wednesday, April 15th, to pay their taxes. That’s in notable contrast to the free passes that keep flowing to the tax agency’s most famous former employee, Lois Lerner.
Ms. Lerner was summoned to the House on May 22, 2013, to answer questions about her role in the IRS’s politically biased review of Tea Party nonprofit group applications for tax-exempt status.
She began her testimony with a statement recounting her career, reprising the scandal and proclaiming her innocence. She ended by saying: “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.” Only after she offered this long defense did she claim her right not to incriminate herself by citing the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions.
House lawyers determined that, in making that statement, Ms. Lerner had forfeited her right to remain silent. The House on May 7, 2014 held her in contempt of Congress and sent the citation to Ronald Machen.
The law clearly explains that the U.S. Attorney’s only “duty” “shall be” to “bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.” Mr. Machen instead sat on the contempt citation for 11 months, and on March 31 sent Speaker John Boehner a letter explaining he ha unilaterally decided not to investigate Ms. Lerner.
According to Ronald Machen’s rationale, Ms. Lerner’s statement made only “general claims of innocence” that did not forfeit her Fifth Amendment rights to refuse to answer questions. To reach this conclusion, Ronald Machen had to willfully ignore that Ms. Lerner, in her statement, rebutted specific accusations against her.
“[M]embers of this committee have accused me of providing false information when I responded to questions about the IRS processing of applications for tax exemption,” she said, before claiming she had never done so. Those accusations had been detailed to her in a letter from former House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa, eight days before she testified.
Ronald Machen also had to ignore that Ms. Lerner had prior to her House appearance voluntarily met for an interview with Justice prosecutors. As the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky has noted, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its 1969 Ellis v. U.S. decision found that “once a witness has voluntarily spoken out, we do not see how his protected interest is jeopardized by testifying in a subsequent proceeding, provided he is not required to disclose matters of substance which are unknown to the Government.”
Since Ms. Lerner had already disclosed to the “government” (prosecutors), she lost her privilege to clam up before Congress. And we’d note that after her House stonewall, she again chose to speak in an interview with the Politico website. Ms. Lerner wants the right not to answer questions except when it suits her public-relations purposes.
In any event, the job of making these legal calls belonged to a grand jury—not Ronald Machen.

                                         (Eric Holder with Ronald Machen)

Then again, this is the prosecutor who in an exit interview with the National Law Journal about his tenure touted his allegiance to Attorney General Eric Holder, describing him as a “tremendous mentor and a tremendous friend.”
After Ronald Machen’s performance in shielding Ms. Lerner from the consequences of her actions, Mr. Holder would no doubt return the compliment. The handling of the IRS scandal is a blot on both of their careers. 
(Source: wall Street Journal Opinion, Apr15, 2015)

Driving A Nice Car Can be A Drag, If You Are Black

There’s No Such Crime As ‘Driving While White’

The shooting of Walter L. Scott in South Carolina prompts the question:
When is the last time you heard of a white man in a Mercedes-Benz being pulled over for driving with a broken taillight?

It has probably happened somewhere, sometime, but there’s a better chance of your car being hit by a meteor.
Getting shot dead during a minor traffic stop also isn’t a prevailing fear among white males in America, no matter what type of vehicle they own.
Scott himself didn’t imagine he was going to die when he was pulled over. Unfortunately, he happened to be a Black man driving a Mercedes, which is what got him noticed. He was behind on child-support payments and probably didn’t want to go to jail.
Something happened at the scene, Scott got Tased and then tried to run away. Officer Michael Slager fired eight times, hitting the unarmed 50-year-old in the back. The killing was caught on cellphone video by a bystander.
Slager told the dispatcher that Scott had snatched his Taser, but the video shows the officer dropping an object that looks just like a Taser near Scott’s handcuffed body. Slager has been charged with murder and fired from his job.

The shooting was shocking to watch, as the whole world has, yet the sequence of events leading up to it is sadly familiar to Black men in this country. They can’t afford to drive around as carefree as us white guys.
In September, a South Carolina state trooper shot and wounded another unarmed Black motorist after pulling him over because he allegedly wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.
I’ve got white friends who rarely buckle up, yet I don’t know of one who has been ticketed for it, or even stopped and warned. Maybe they’re just lucky.
The Black comedian Chris Rock uses his Twitter account to record his traffic-stop encounters. In a recent seven-week period, he was pulled over three times (once as a passenger).
It’s possible he and his friends aren’t very good drivers. It’s also possible they’ve been targeted merely for “Driving While Black,”(DWB) an unwritten offense that still exists in many regions of the country, not just the Deep South — and not just in high-crime areas.
The odds would be fairly slim for a Black man driving a luxury car not to be pulled over at least once on a road trip between, say, Utah and North Dakota. Even in a ’98 Taurus he’d need to be watching the rear-view mirror for blue lights.
Generalizing about traffic stops can be problematic. The numbers often spike in certain neighborhoods at certain times of day, and a small number of officers can account for many incidents of racial profiling.

Still, the evidence that it exists is more than anecdotal.
Using a “Police-Public Contact Survey,” the U.S. Justice Department analyzed traffic stops of drivers aged 16 or older nationwide during 2011, comparing by race and weighting by population.
To the astonishment of hardly anyone, Black drivers were about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, and approximately 23 percent more likely to be pulled over than Hispanic motorists.
A series published by the Washington Post in September reported that minority drivers had their cars searched (and cash seized) at a higher rate than white drivers. That jibed with the Justice Department’s conclusion that vehicle searches occurred substantially more often when the driver wasn’t white.
Another unsurprising fact: Compared to other races, white drivers were most likely to get pulled over for speeding. Black drivers were statistically more likely to be stopped for vehicle defects or record checks.
Which is what happened to Walter L. Scott in North Charleston.
Never in almost five decades of driving have I been pulled over for a busted brake light or a burned-out headlight, even though I’ve had a few.
It didn’t matter whether I was in a Dodge, Oldsmobile, Jeep, Ford, Chevy or even, for a while, a Mercedes SUV.
The only thing I’ve ever been stopped for is, like many impatient white people, driving too fast.
And every time a police officer walked up to my car, I knew exactly why he or she wanted to chat with me. It was no mystery whatsoever.

That’s not always the case for a Black man behind the wheel of a car in this country. This is not just a perception; it’s a depressing reality.
If it had been me or Matt Lauer or even faux Hispanic Jeb Bush driving that Mercedes-Benz in South Carolina, Officer Slager wouldn’t have stopped the car. Not for a busted taillight, no way.
Which prompts another question: How long can this go on?
(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL, 33132.)
Photo: Redjar via Flickr

How to Win a Social Security Disability Claim? Find The Right Judge.

Disability Claim Denied? Find the Right Judge

Nine percent of the judges who hear appeals grant benefits 90% of the time, costing taxpayers tens of billions.

 

To all parties involved in a trial, the slam of a gavel should indicate that justice has been served. Unfortunately, this is often not the case with Social Security Disability (SSDI and SSI) appeals. A system designed to serve society’s vulnerable has morphed into a benefit bonanza that costs taxpayers billions of dollars more than it should. The disability trust fund will become insolvent in 2016, and Congress would be wise to begin much needed reform.
A disability applicant whose claim is rejected during the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) first two stages ( before State Disability Determination Services)  can appeal the decision to administrative-law judges (ALJ). These judges must impartially balance the claims of the applicant against the interests of taxpayers.
Over the past decade judicial impartiality has declined significantly, as many administrative-law judges uncritically approve most claims. In 2008 judges on average approved about 70% of claims before them, according to the Social Security Administration. Nine percent of judges approved more than 90% of benefit requests that landed on their desks.
Do nine out of every 10 applicants appealing denied claims need societal support? There are reasons for skepticism. The data show that judges who are generous in granting benefits are consistently generous over time—which is suspicious, since each year they should hear a random set of new cases. The more discerning judges—those who award benefits less than 90% of the time—are more unpredictable from year to year.

(Photo: Getty Images/Illustration Works)

If the judges with award rates topping 90% are removed from the data, the rate of denial increases by 2%-3% annually. That amounts to 98,000 claims from 2005-11. Assuming an average lifetime award of $250,000, taxpayers would have saved $23 billion over those six years had the worst judges left the bench. If we lower the threshold to exclude judges with award rates north of 85%, these savings increase to $41 billion.
Former Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, who took office in 2007, made much-needed changes. Incompetent incumbents saw their influence diluted by new judges drawn from fresh candidate lists. Judicial decisions are now randomly reviewed to ensure that the court remains impartial and fair to taxpayers. Judges were limited to hearing 1,000 cases a year (the figure has since been lowered to 700), and individuals are allowed only one disability application at a time.
Mr. Astrue’s reforms have produced good results. In 2011 judges with award rates exceeding 90% heard a mere 4% of all cases, a 63.6% decline from 2008. But Mr. Astrue’s term expired in 2013, and these changes can easily be undone, either intentionally by future administrators, or unintentionally as bad habits slip back into the system.
His program to increase accountability and judicial turnover should be made permanent. Congress should also institute 15-year term limits for judges, who currently enjoy lifetime tenure, to ensure that fresh legal minds are joining the stale judicial aristocracy. A term of a decade and a half is long enough to insulate judges and prevent undue political influence.
The system faces a huge backlog, made worse by claimants who play adjudication roulette, filing and then withdrawing appeals in hopes of drawing a generous judge. Congress can limit this gamesmanship by allowing only one application per claimant in a three-year period. Because judges must marshal more documentation for a denial than an approval, they have an incentive to grant benefits to keep the system chugging along. The agency can fix this by further limiting the number of cases each judge must decide to 500 from 700.
The system is further complicated because even if a claimant has legal counsel, the judge must advocate on the claimant’s behalf. This dual role should be ended. Most claimants—85%—now have third-party representation. These professionals should be held responsible for getting supporting materials into court expeditiously and completely so the record can be closed in a timely manner.
Even under better legal rules, judges will still face rigid and outdated guidelines for granting benefits. The framework they must follow—known as the Medical Vocational Grid (known as The Listings)—is formulaic to the point of senselessness. For instance, the bar to benefits approval is lower for someone who doesn’t speak English, on the theory that it is difficult to find a job without the language. But that English rule is also applied to claimants from Puerto Rico, where the language of business is Spanish.
These guidelines (in The Listings) also do not give due consideration to actual labor market experience, dictating a looser approval standard for someone with only a high-school degree, even if the person has succeeded in the labor force for decades.
The framework (of The Listings) was developed in the late 1950s, for the previous generation’s workforce, and hasn’t been updated since 1978. Decades ago workers ages 50 or 55 might have been considered retiring, but this is no longer generally the case. Novel job-training programs also make it easier than ever for workers to move into new fields and make up for low levels of education, and new disability criteria would account for these changes.
These solutions would begin to deliver meaningful reform to Social Security disability awards. They can restore dignity and efficacy to a troubled system.
 (BY Mark J. Warshawsky And Ross A. Marchand, March 8, 2015) 
(Mr. Warshawsky is a visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University and a former member of the Social Security Advisory Board from 2006 to 2012. Mr. Marchand is a first-year economics graduate student at George Mason University.)

Brian Seel 45 minutes ago

Yet another data point to support the idea that the safety net should be completely privatized (with our dollars returned to us and taxes lowered so we may support and do the work).

The way you make calls in these cases is with people, in their community, sitting and talking to these people.  Don't make it a faceless claimant identified only by a social security number.  Let them sit in front of their neighbor, who not without compassion, also will get to know them, but also will know that there is a call center 2 miles down the road that is hiring.

The only incentive bureaucrats ever have is to keep the dollars rolling out the door.  It's how we got in this mess in the first place.  

Bill Wald 27 minutes ago

@Brian Seel Before FDR and SS the safety net was completely privatized. Many old people without a family who could/would care for them starved or froze to death in the winter. That's why SS was started.

These days many American would rather pay to have feral cats sterilized and released than to contribute cash money to help homeless and/or foster children. Many foster children in the US are functionally "homeless." So are many children theoretically with homes.

For the first million years, humans knew the difference between their food and their pets. These days, many Americans don't know the difference between food, pets, and children.

Brian Seel 13 minutes ago

@Bill Wald @Brian Seel Bill, there is a difference between a privatized safety net in a nation without two pennies to rub together (the Depression era America you speak of) and the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.  Point #1.

Point #2 would be that the system is already far more privatized than you realize.  I've done volunteer work for years with the poor.  The first question you always ask them is what state aid they are receiving.

Inevitably, when budgets are tight, Democratic governors turn off the spigot (they just don't tell you).  I saw many, many legitimate hard cases who the state lacked the werewithal to help and were it not for private charities would have frozen to death.

Point #3, the world of restricted charity you describe is precisely a function of two things.  One a government that claims to be caring for everyone (a lie).  Two, a world where the average taxpayer sends half their income to the government.

Change the paradigm, change the behavior.  

bruce miller just now

@Bill Wald @Brian Seel
Bill, this article is about fraud and abuse, not denying benefits to people who need them.
Aren't you even a little bit offended by the notion of a government that takes the cash of hard working Americans to dispense it to people who submit fraudulent disability claims?

Joseph Lorenzo 1 hour ago

Stacked deck. So lets see: we have the plaintiff, his attorney, the judge who also acts as the plaintiff's attorney on one side and the taxpayer, who is not represented by anyone and not even there, on the other side. Why would anyone be surprised by such a high number of reversals? What I would like to know is how fraudulent were the cases whose appeal was denied?

TOM PAINTER 2 hours ago

Take from the Medicare payroll taxes whatever it is that actuaries say could be Social Security Disability's portion and use it to pay into private disability insurance plans, parceling out Social Security beneficiaries randomly to dozens of insurance companies; with no other revenues or "subsidies" for the program going to them.  I doubt they will long permit the present fraud that is taking place.

David Lenihan 3 hours ago

This raises the question....Is it possible that judges are being bribed by attorneys to approve cases?  You decide.

Henry Lyczak 3 hours ago

The whole 1-800-(I can get you a piece of something for nothing) lawyer circus has got to end.  It is facilitated by lack of adult supervision in our judiciary.  The law is what I interpret it to be based on my own biases.  Of course, Congress could help by writing laws that are clear and specific.  But then, they could not go back to campaign contributors and tell them each got what they paid for.

murray veroff 4 hours ago

These disturbing stories indicate that members of congress must also be members of the press. The latter knows and discloses so much more than members of congress. Sad.

david berliner 4 hours ago

A bounty system should be created to claw back false claims.

Gregg Larson 4 hours ago

So much for an independent judiciary.

Robert Stewart 4 hours ago

That people are willing to accept a disability income instead of working and advancing their incomes is blowback to Piketty's thesis.

Bill Wald 49 minutes ago

@Robert Stewart I know a middle aged person with a Ph.D  who has been on disability for 20 years because of arthritis but can walk their large dog every day.

Mark Weidmann 4 hours ago

People seem to not realize that the disability system is an insurance system. All the beneficiaries pay into the disability system through reductions in their pay checks during their their working lives. When they become disabled from working, they are supposed to receive the disability benefits. Anybody working I. The system knows that far too many people who should get benefits are denied, then the other way around. There is nothing in this article that indicates otherwise.

Kevin Brandon 4 hours ago

What a joke. The sheer magnitude of the increase in disability awards defies all probability.

Duane Brosky 4 hours ago

@Mark Weidmann Disability has become the income of last resort under this administration.

Kenneth Gimbel 6 hours ago

It would have been informative to learn what percentage of those applying for disability benefits were rejected thus prompting them to resort to administrative law review. Is the system set up to withhold benefits regardless of their merit?  Before insinuating the worst, the author should have presented a complete picture of the process.

Tom Taggart 6 hours ago

@Kenneth Gimbel Peripheral contact with the system indicates to me that most applications are denied initially, but then granted on appeal. When the appeal is granted, applicants get "back pay" for about 18 months.  Typically, the attorney representing the applicant on appeal gets 20~25% of this award.

Tom Wallace 7 hours ago

There can be no argument that this country needs a solid safety net for those that are less fortunate.
However, we now have a hammock instead of a safety net. That, in the end, removes the needed safety net as there are simply not enough resources to go around.
It's basic economics and very few are taught basic economics, or so it seems.
Tom W
Working today so others don't have to

Mark Weidmann 4 hours ago

Problem is the field of economics is an intellectual disaster. Starting with false and empirically unverified assumptions about people and the world, the field of economics then reasons to incorrect, mistaken, and empirically uncertified conclusions. Your statement is in the same vein.

John Pound 3 hours ago

@Mark Weidmann We have an $18T national debt & the SSA says disability program runs out of money in 2016.

Which part of that is empirically uncertified conclusion?

KEVIN BURNS 14 hours ago

Is it perhaps time to change from a single judge to a jury?  Allow a panel to tune in via the net and give a quick thumbs up or thumbs down.

John Yungton 7 hours ago

@KEVIN BURNS  Can anyone currently getting disability be on the panel?

KEVIN BURNS 3 hours ago

@John Yungton @KEVIN BURNS
NO.

Thomas Yasin 2 hours ago

@KEVIN BURNS -- Juries are notorious for giving away Other People's Money.

JAMES WADDELL 16 hours ago

There is rampant fraud in both the Social Security and the Veterans' Administration disability programs and both systems need to be reformed.

That being said, I do believe there should be different standards based on education.  If you are a high school dropout capable of only manual labor, a back injury that would be a minor inconvenience to an office worker may be totally disabling to you.  

Charles Stehney 16 hours ago

Detroit Free had a brief story and a link to the Michigan County Disability Database.

Rural Counties and Detroit's Wayne County are reporting higher disability than the national average.  This isn't disability.  This is economic parochialism with Judges trying to bring money back to their local citizens.  Milking Social Security until it collapses.

JAIRO PUENTES 17 hours ago

Congress should review the selection of these judges an establish more rigorous standards for disability claims. As a doctor, I see many people who are on disability and work as landscapers or for a family member to evade reporting earnings. There is too much fraud in the system

John Yungton 7 hours ago

@JAIRO PUENTES  You could view Congress's salary as another form of disability payments, just from another purse pocket.

Mark Weidmann 4 hours ago

The standards are already very rigorous.

Ambassador to Hungary Colleen Bradley Bell Arrives In Hungary

New US Ambassador to Hungary Colleen Bradley Bell, pictured above in center, arrived in the Hungarian capital Budapest. The United States’ highest-level diplomatic representation has resumed following an almost two-year period in of absence of an American Ambassador.

(Ambassador Bell being sworn-in in December 2014)
She was received on behalf of the government by Levente Magyar, State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations (KKM), at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport.
 Mr. Magyar highlighted that the Hungarian government welcomes the ambassador with utmost openness and affection, saying that [the cabinet] “is looking forward to working together with marked optimism”.
The Government is convinced that in the near future, a dialogue will evolve between Hungary and the US which,  will navigate relations in a constructive direction. Economic and military cooperation between the two parties has never been as outstanding and strong as now.
The State Secretary added that with Colleen Bell’s arrival, the United States’ highest-level diplomatic representation has, at long last, resumed, following an almost two-year period in the absence of an US ambassador.

 Ambassador Colleen Bell presented her credentials to President of Hungary János Áder.

After presenting her credentials, Ambassador Bell laid a memorial wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Heroes’ Square, in the name of the people of the United States of America.

  On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, Ambassador Bell and Minister Balog signed an agreement to eliminate dual social security taxation. (See below)

Colleen Bradley Bell (born January 30, 1967) is an American television producer, philanthropist and advocate for the environment, arts and social causes. Bell resided in Los Angeles with her husband, television writer/producer Bradley Bell, and their four children.
 On November 6, 2013, Pres. Obama announced his intent to nominate Ms. Bell as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. The nomination was controversial and Senator John McCain called her "totally unqualfied". On December 1, 2014, the U.S. Senate voted 50-36 to invoke cloture on Bell's nomination, thus cutting off a Republican-led filibuster. On December 2, 2014, the Senate voted 52-42 to confirm Bell. Bell faced criticisms from Republicans, led by McCain, and commentators over her perceived lack of expertise on Hungary and its current geopolitical situation, as well as for the political nature of her appointment.
Bell was confirmed in December 2014 as the United States Ambassador to Hungary.

(April Foley was President George Bush's Ambassador to Hungary until 2009)
 President Obama’s pick for Ambassador to Hungary, Colleen Bell is a producer for “Bold and the Beautiful” and has raised millions for Obama’s campaign.

 Colleen Bradley Bell, is not only a soap opera producer, she is soap royalty.
Her husband Bradley Bell is scion of soap opera mogul William Bell. The late William Bell worked as a head writer at “Days of Our Lives” before striking gold with his own series “Bold and the Beautiful,” “The Young and the Restless” and the now-defunct “Another World.”
Bell has also served as a Kennedy Center trustee since 2012, alongside Caroline Kennedy, who is U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
 She is somebody that the President has confidence will be able to maintain our relationship with the government and the people of Hungary ... she was chosen because the President has complete confidence in her ability to represent the United States in Hungary.

When describing her qualifications for the job, the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to Hungary cited a "product" she helped develop that is exported to "more than 100 countries, for daily consumption with more than 40 million viewers."
The product Colleen Bradley Bell produced is the soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful.
The big political donor who becomes an ambassador to a relatively small country is something of a Washington punch line and also a tradition. Presidents have done this for decades. But critics say the Obama administration has taken it too far.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bell and Mamet each raised at least $500,000 for President Obama's campaign in 2012.
At Bell's confirmation hearing, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked her about America's strategic interest in Hungary. The answer that followed could best be described as a word soup.

"Well, we have a strategic interest," she said. "In terms of what are our key priorities, in Hungary. I think our key priorities are to, um, improve upon as I mentioned the security relationship, and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..."
McCain wasn't impressed. He cleared his throat and asked the question again.
"It's really disgraceful," said McCain following the confirmation vote, which fell neatly along party lines.
Especially, he says, because Hungary is in a perilous state politically, teetering between the influence of Western democracies and Vladimir Putin's Russia. As for Bell's qualifications, White House press secretary Josh Earnest grasped for words at yesterday's press briefing.
"Well she certainly is somebody again, that, that is, has, has had her own distinguished private sector career," said Earnest.

According to the American Foreign Service Association, in Obama's second term a little more than 40 percent of ambassador nominees have been political rather than career diplomats. In recent past administrations the share has been less, 30 percent.
When author Kati Marton was 5 years old, growing up in Hungary, the first American she met was the U.S. ambassador. Her parents, journalists, were deemed enemies of the state and jailed, she says.

"Ambassador [Christian M.] Ravndal made a point of looking after my older sister and me who had been left as, well, political orphans," said Marton, recalling a defining moment in her childhood.
She says he visited them, pulling up in a big Buick with an American flag on the front, a deeply symbolic move in Cold War Hungary.
"The American ambassador in countries that are often forgotten by Washington can play an enormous role, a symbolic role, standing in for what America stands for," said Marton.
Marton is the widow of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and says she knows rewarding donors is part of the way Washington works.
This year the American Foreign Service Association, which represents career diplomats, came out with four simple qualifications for an ambassador.
"Relevant international experience," explains Bob Silverman, the group's president. "High-level government or other high-level policy articulation experience, good management skills. Good leadership skills."
He opted not to say whether Bell, Mamet and the other recent donor ambassadors met that standard.