He added: “Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking Isle of Man.”
Speaking in court on Tuesday, Mr Davidson described the comment as “a joke”. “I know they don’t have an ambassador, but I think it was a reference to Mr Trump’s candidacy”, he added.
Seriously, get it right, it’s not that they don’t have one, it’s that we Americans don’t have one to them.
Pendantry over, this is also how such jobs get given out. Campaign donors do indeed get given Ambassadorships. PJ O’Rourke makes much of it – dividing places into those that are small, not well known or boring and so they get good, professional, Ambassadors. Then there are those with good clothes shops which get political ones – rich men on third wives sort.
One buddy of mine bitterly regrets not having given, say, $10k and put out a few lawn signs for Trump back in late 2015, early 2016. Could have got ambassador to Lithuania out of it – which would have driven his business to new and very lofty heights. Oh well……
My missus used to be very active with the Anglican Church in Vienna. It is opposite the embassy in the 3rd District and she would often meet the ambassador of the day.
One rotation was quite amusing. The new couple who moved in both worked for the FO. So she jokingly asked which of them was the ambassador and they replied “We both are !” I think he was ambassador to Austria and she was ambassador to Slovakia and commuted to Pressburg.
Issue in the UK was a bit the other way round. Professionals wanted nice quiet western slots later on in their career after having done the war, drugs and plagues zones , exactly where businesses and trade wanted business reps parachuted in over the FOs. Mind you was hosted by a pro who had the SF consulate and he was the most amazing grifter I have ever known, managed to get into the yacht club, the bohemia and free lease of a jag in a 3 year stint but did spend more time worried about teen UK runaways as he fairly pointed out that was the press management issue of the day. FOs staffing on the basis of who you were married to was a thing to see as well.
The transcript of this trial reads like a reboot of the Jerry Springer show.
I see that the Telegraph quotes the request without noting the irony, thereby showing what they think of Trump. It’s like the (then) Prince Charles and “talking to my roses” quote.
Unless you are some kind of Vulcan talking in precise literal terms all the time, the risk is that people will present your words as such if they want to fix someone.
What’s this ‘we Americans’ Tim? You a US citizen as well?
Slipped into hte voice of the respondent there……tsk
I could go for a roving ambassadorship. Ten months Tahiti and one month each Monaco and Isle of Man. Guess which months.