As is often the case, there were a couple of interesting nuggests in
"Bajo Reserva" yesterday. Here's the first:
The ambassador of the United States in Mexico will be Carlos Pascual, they tell us. This was a hurried naming because they wanted Barack Obama to have the protocol for his visit to Mexico in place. The good news is that he's not a Washington or Chicago politician who was rewarded for being a friend of the president; he's a member of the foreign service. The bad news is that is "foreign service" es very foreign, so foreign as to not include Mexico. Pascual was born in Cuba and emigrated with his parents to the United States when he was three years old, but he has worked primarily in Eastern Europe and a bit more. He was the ambassador to Ukraine from 2000 to 2003; coordinator for assistence from the US to Europe and Eurasia; director of Russian, Ukranian, and Eurasian affairs in the National Security Council. And so on. Ah, he also participated in some forums on Latin American. They'll say in Washington: he speaks Spanish, he knows Mexico. Does he?
Jorge
Castañeda's take is virtually the exact opposite:
Jorge G. Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, said he was pleased that the administration was reaching outside the pool of Latin American specialists at the State Department. But he said he was concerned that Mr. Pascual did not have close ties to either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton.
2 comments:
Pascual is a heavyweight. Head of Brookings foreign policy department is a serious position in DC, as was his most recent post at DOS. My (vague-ish) impression is that he's a sharp character and a fairly skilled bureacrat. May not be in the Obama or Clinton direct orbit but has the attention of many important people. Probably a strong choice.
I think Bajo Reserva would find fault wherever it was. They want it to be someone whose close to Obama or Clinton, but not someone who was chosen simply for being a friend. That would seem to limit the possibilities to zero. I'm also not convinced that "knowing Mexico" per se is such an advantage, at least as important as knowing the job.
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