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**JULY 7, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

One Other Way Joe Biden Is a Class Act

****

A few months ago, I happened to be speaking with a man whom I knew
several decades ago when I was a young investigator for the Senate
Banking Committee. I grew up to be a journalist and editor. He grew up
to run a hedge fund, and to become a leading Wall Street Democrat
zillionaire. We still talk occasionally.

He raised a lot of money for Joe Biden. "But Biden bundlers are not in
line for ambassadorships," he said wistfully.

Biden is rebuilding the State Department after Trump's carnage. And
one of the ways he is doing it is to restore confidence among Foreign
Service officers by appointing either career people or eminent people
seriously knowledgeable about the country to key diplomatic posts,
rather than using ambassadorships as career-capper rewards to
fundraisers.

The other day, Biden named Amy Gutmann, a political philosopher who has
been president of Penn since 2004, as his ambassador to Germany. She is
also the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Several others who are career
Foreign Service people have been named as ambassadors to smaller
countries.

You might say it's a small thing, but it suggests Biden is serious
about rebuilding government and restoring some integrity to the process
of appointing ambassadors.

The closest thing to a dubious patronage appointment is Morgan Stanley
vice chair Tom Nides to the sensitive post of ambassador to Israel. (And
it could have been worse-Nides was rumored to be in line for a key
domestic job. Apparently Nides was promised he'd get something.)

And speaking of which, we've heard nothing further about Japan since
the flurry of leaks in late May reporting with absolute certainty that
Biden was naming Rahm Emanuel to that important post. Like other
definite leaked jobs that Emanuel didn't get, this one bore all the
earmarks of the leaks coming from Emanuel himself.

Let's hope Biden remains resolute and names a serious Japan specialist
to this important job. There is only one person close to Emanuel who
could get Biden to take this insulting idea seriously, and that is
Barack Obama. Biden owes Obama a lot. He doesn't owe him this.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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Justice Amy Coney Barrett declined to recuse herself in a case involving
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Executive Editor David Dayen leads a discussion on balancing free speech
with public recourse. BY PROSPECT STAFF

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