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New Us Ambassador Sounds Like A Winner


Flashermac
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W. Patrick Murphy is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Prior to arriving in Thailand, he served as Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma (Acting), from 2012 to 2013. He previously served as Director and Deputy Director of the Office for Mainland Southeast Asia (Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam), Deputy Special Representative for Burma, leader of the interagency Ninewa Provincial Reconstruction Team in northern Iraq, Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy Maseru (Kingdom of Lesotho), and Political and Economic Chief at Embassy Rangoon. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1992, he has also completed diplomatic assignments abroad in China, Guinea, and Mali.

 

In Washington, Mr. Murphy previously served as senior political advisor for the Haiti Working Group and desk officer for Burma and Laos. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.

 

He received an M.A. in international relations from The Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), an M.S. in strategic security studies from the National War College, where he was a distinguished (honor) graduate, and a B.A. in political science and Canadian studies from the University of Vermont. He studied international economics at the European Institute in Nice, France.

 

Mr. Murphy is a recipient of the Department of State’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards and the Department of the Army’s Superior Civilian Service Award. He was the runner-up for the Secretary of State’s 2005 Human Rights and Democracy Achievement Award for his work in Burma. He received the National Defense University 2009 President’s Award for excellence in writing. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Murphy was a resource economist for the World Wildlife Fund and a policy analyst for the Overseas Development Council. His foreign languages include French, Spanish, Cantonese, and Burmese. Patrick and his wife, Kathleen, have a son (Seamus) and two daughters (Meghan and Gillian).

 

http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/dcm.html

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US Ambassadors are political appointments. An ambassador is dumber then dirt, no problem, it's politics!

 

Very, very few ambassadors are even remotely qualified for their posting!!

 

At least since 2000, all US Ambassadors to Thailand have been career Foreign Service Officers. Having taken the Foreign Service Exam, and having then gone through the selection process before the Board of Examiners (and not been selected), I can attest that no idiots can make it into the Foreign Service. It was - by far - the hardest and most selective selection process that I have sever gone through.

 

I took the exam in December 2003 - they said that 122,000 people took the test that day, worldwide. The first cut was to the top 1,000 scorers. Those selected then had to go to a full-day selection process in various places around the world. My rejection letter said that they accepted 13 people that year - and that I should apply again, because in other years, I would have made it - and that most people who are accepted have gone through the process more than once.

 

I do agree with you about Ambassadors who are political appointees - big donors who are given glamorous postings.

 

Cheers!

SS

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I thought about Foreign Service once upon a time, but a friend's experiences put me off. He was ex-Peace Corps Thailand, BA and MA from Cornell, a very sharp guy. He had a natural ability for learning languages, and his Thai was excellent. But he took and failed to pass the exam 3 times. He told me that years later he was chatting with a Foreign Service officer in a bar. He described his own disappointment ... getting very close, but not quite close enough. The FSO said to him, "I had it easy. My father and uncle were Foreign Service officers, and they got me in." :p

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Yeah, they say stuff like that - but the guy also probably kicked ass on the exam. I work regularly with FOS and find them very impressive, and have never yet encountered one that I could say was somehow not entitled to their post. Ambassadors, yes, but FSOs, no. And while they may exclude a number of people who seem on the surface to be very good, I know from my own experience that they do somehow have a sense for how to identify those who kick ass on their tests but have cracks that may eventually surface... hell, they kept me out, so kudos to them!

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