I'm not sure what to make of the appointment of Mike Moore as our latest ambassador to the US.
The one thing in his favour is that he is high profile and knows some of the key people in the US.
But whenever I have heard him speak or have read anything written by him, my impression has been of someone who is full of ideas, but ideas that are often confused and unfocused, or lacking meat. I suspect he would have made a great ad-man.
And on some critical issues (such as the environment and climate change) he appears almost reactionary.
It is telling that you have to look quite hard to find people in the Labour Party who have kind words for him. It is clear that when he and Helen Clark fought for control of the Labour Party in the '90s a lot of love was lost. That may simply say more about the people who beat Moore than about Moore. I just don't know.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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Ambassador is not a policy or executive role, it's a diplomatic role. By far the most important characteristic Moore brings to the job is his public (international) standing as a statesman. Everything else, including most of his personal beliefs, are pretty unimportant. In that regard it's an excellent appointment -- as was the appointment of Jim Bolger previously.
ReplyDeleteL
You may be right.
ReplyDeleteAnd if his new role keeps him busy and means he has no time to write silly opinion pieces in the Herald then I'm okay with that too.
Ambassadorial positions aren't all that good for preventing the dissemination of stupid verbiage, but they're pretty good at curtailing anything more serious.
ReplyDeleteL