Obama names campaign supporters to ambassadorships

{mosads}Obama also named John Phillips, the chairman of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, to serve as ambassador to the Italian Republic and the Republic of San Marino. Phillips was a major Obama bundler and is married to Linda Douglass, a former ABC News correspondent who  served as the spokeswoman for the president’s healthcare reform law when it was being debated on Capitol Hill.

The president also nominated John Hoover, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and former deputy chief of mission to Uganda, to serve as ambassador to Sierra Leone. Hoover is currently the director of the Office of Regional and Security Affairs for the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State.

And he named Crystal Nix-Hines to serve as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Nix-Hines works for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in Los Angeles and served in various State Department roles two decades ago, including as counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

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