"Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. "David T. Wolf

I think I mentioned that I had received an invitation to attend a reception in downtown Toulouse for the US Ambassador to France for this last Friday. It was a formal event that I would just as soon pass up for the one huge reason that I am, well, huge and I would have had to go out and buy a formal dress that fit my current size and that I would wear only once, it seemed like a waste of money.

Anyway, everybody I spoke to was like ‘you have to go’ and ‘wow what a great opportunity’ so I vacillated for days between yes and no. I even had S block out the time in his schedule. Then I came up with a brilliant idea; let’s find out who this guy is. So in true Missy fashion I googled the guy to see what I could find out about his Excellency Craig R. Stapleton.

The first article I found was this one which I admit is a bit biased but informative none the less. It turns out that he’s a Bush crony that only got the ‘prestigious and highly coveted ambassadorship to France’ because he (A) Garnered the most cash in private contributions toward the re-election campaign and (B) Is married to GW’s cousin Dorothy who is also a huge Bush contributor.

The State Department Bio makes him sound so much more respectable, but only because it omits the more unsavory aspects of his political and familial ties.

Now maybe I’m really naïve, but I thought ambassadors were supposed to be altruistic and peace minded people with service to their country utmost in mind. Someone to actually help patch up the current relationship between France and the US, you know what I mean. But no, this is not a man of diplomacy, wisdom and discourse to follow in the rich tradition of other former ambassadors to France like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. No instead, this is just a rich real estate fat cat who garnered himself a cushy job in Paris for a few years by giving, and getting all his friends to give, big cash to the republican party and specifically the Bush re-election campaign. I was so disappointed. Needless to say, we didn’t go to the reception.

But you haven’t even heard the real kicker yet, one of the sites I found lists him as a Democrat. I’m pretty sure there are substantial grounds for blacklisting him from the party.