Reply #16: The new envoy: Bush fundraiser and cousin [View All]

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - President Bush has chosen Craig Stapleton, a cousin by marriage and top campaign fund-raiser, to be the next U.S. ambassador to France, the White House said Tuesday.

If the Senate confirms Stapleton, a Democrat, he will get the plum post in Paris after serving earlier in the Bush administration as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

The mission would make Stapleton the top diplomat in a European ally that has had rocky relations with the United States in recent years, most notably over the Iraq war that France opposed.

Stapleton, whose wife, Debbie, is the president's cousin, was the U.S. ambassador in Prague from August 2001 to January 2004, when he returned to his home in Greenwich, Conn., to help Bush's successful re-election campaign. Stapleton and his wife were among the top fund-raisers for Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 election cycles.

The former New York real estate executive served on the Peace Corps board of directors when Bush's father was president. He also was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=693&e=4&u=/ap/20050412/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_french_ambassador

Sorta screams CIA.