Joe Wilson's Testicles: Diplomacy Under The Microscope

Foreign Relations: 

Interview With Jean Baptiste Tartuffe

by Winsip Custer, CPW News Service

     The terms seems to betray the intent…an oxymoron;  Foreign: something distant, removed, unknown and unknowable.  Relations: social intercourse, interconnectedness, intimacy, relatedness.

     Jean Baptiste Tartuffe, world renowned author, lecturer and expert in the field of foreign relations and criteria for selecting  national ambassadors provided a rare look into this secretive process.  “Yes, in the past it has been about like the cloistered Cardinals in the Vatican selecting their Pope,” said Tartuffe.

     “In the past the primary determinant for selecting an ambassador is loyalty to the nation and a nation’s narrow self-interests, but of course, at any point in a nation’s political cycle, that loyalty may be more to an elected leaded, dictator, or monarch than to some overarching ethic or belief.  All of that is changing.  With the advent of the Internet and the crumbling national boundaries, leaders are less and less able to use the penultimate motive of ‘national self-interest’ as opposed to larger, broader and ultimately more humanitarian and civilized motives,” said Tartuffe.

     I asked Tartuffe if he could cite an example.  “Certainly, I can,” he said.  "In the past a President might decide on an ambassador for, let’s say a Scandinavian nation, Sweden.  Sweden is a good example.  Sweden being a highly homogeneous society, I might be expected as President to select someone who is from  that same culture and homogeneity.  So I discover that the King of Sweden is a Mason.  I select a Mason of American-Swedish descent.  Everybody feels peachy, but there will be no great strides in the expansion of diversity and appreciation of cultural differenced in the process.  However, if I select Sally Hemming’s great great great granddaughter, who is neither a Mason nor blonde, I will have made a serious political and philosophical statement, but I wouldn't consider Tiger Wood for Ambassador of any Scandinavian nation.  That would be especially problematic even if he was half Fin instead of oriental," said Tartuffe.

     Tarfuffe believes that the appointment of a political official in the foreign service corp should make overarching statements of grand and universal significance.  “Otherwise, let’s say I’m Bill Clinton and I appoint as Ambassador to Norway, Robert Norris, from Hope Arkansas, because he’s a Mason, like the king of Norway and blonde, blue-eyed and happens to own the hardware store in Hope where Clinton’s cousin is employed.  Immediately, the appointment is tainted with narrow cronyism and nepotism.  You can see that can’t you?” he asked.

     “Take a Central American Ambassador.  Central America has a long history of being a feudalistic playground for American misadventure dating back to the filibustering attempts of William Walker in the 1800’s and of the Portugese and Spanish before that.  If I’m President George Herbert Walker Bush or George Walker Bush and I appoint David Walker of the Treasury Department as the new Ambassador to El Salvador, I might shoot my nation in the foot.  It might be read by the very nation that I’m trying to bring democracy and understanding to that I have them in my sights for more misadventure,” said Tartuffe.  “However, if I appointed an honest, hard-working American immigrant with an El Salvadorian background as my Ambassador, I will earn trust.  The question also has to do with the power resources of the very nation for which I am selecting a representative.  The more powerful the nation, the more lowly the Ambassador should be.  Russia at the height of the Cold War, should have had an Ambassador like Igor Romanovsky.”

     I asked Tartuffe “who is Igor Romanovsky?”  He owns a small but successful plumbing company in Queens,” said Tartuffe.  “But he’s living the American dream as a free market capitalist and with his experience in climbing underneath foundations and in walls he could have helped debug the U.S. Embassy in Moscow,” said Tartuffe.

     I asked Tartuffe if there was anyone that he felt has really stood out as a great example of U.S. diplomacy in the last 100 years.  “Yes, Joe Wilson,” he said.  “The Interim Ambassador to Iraq?” I asked.  “The one who said that there had been no yellow cake uranium imported by Saddam Hussein from Niger as justification for George W. Bush’s war with Iraq?  The one responsible for the conviction of Scooter Libby?" I said.

     “Yes, Valerie Plame’s husband,” said Tarfuffe.  “Nobody has bigger balls in the foreign service in the last 100 years than Joe Wilson.  In fact, I propose that a giant memorial.....The Joe Wilson Memorial for Excellence in Foreign Service....perhaps a giant casting of his dangling testicles....be placed somewhere near the Lincoln Memorial.  His witness and testimony shows just how entrenched is the attitude of narrow, limited and self-serving political appointments and the expectation that foreign service officials are powerless nannies serving whatever idiot happens to be sitting on top of the most powerful nation in the world at any moment.  Wilson didn’t play their game, but he served the greater ethic…the one that the shrinking world must become serious about serving or destroy itself,” said Tartuffe.

       "Did you like the fact that Joe Wilson was played in the film Fair Game by actor Sean Penn, who has repeatedly aligned himself with far left causes and has visited the Venezuelan dictator?" I asked.

      "Sean Penn is a fine actor, but who knows how warped his years with Madonna has made him?  In years past I would have had John Wayne, Charleton Heston or maybe Robert Mitchum play that part, but the facts of the story is what counts and the conviction of Libby clarifies the sad reality associated with a President's limited vision," said Tartuffe. "Wilson and his wife are still galactic heroes," Tartuffe concluded.