AP source:
Obama to name Utah governor envoy to China
Yahoo! News
AP
15 May 2009 9:00 p.m. MDT
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK – A source close to Utah's Governor Jon Huntsman says President Barack Obama plans to name the Republican governor as ambassador to China.
The source says Huntsman has accepted the appointment.
An announcement was expected at the White House Saturday morning.
The 49-year old Huntsman is a Mormon who liberalized Utah's restrictive liquor laws and has nudged the state in a more moderate direction on the environment and gay rights.
Huntsman has been mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential contender. He served as ambassador to Singapore under President George W. Bush. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and has an adopted daughter from China.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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RIGHTASCENSION ASSUMES THE AIR OF SOPHISTICATED BEMUSEMENT
Jon Huntsman is rich, he speaks Mandarian, he has experience in China, he has ambassadorial experience in Asia. President Obama's idea is a brilliant one --- especially since it gets one of Obama's rivals for the 2012 election out of the way and in his employee in far off Beijing.
Huntsman, we hear, wants to be president, and so to that end, it is better for his future political career to go to Beijing -- which is not swimming in red ink and which still has power to spare -- than to hang around in Washington and Salt Lake City where he will find himself embroiled in all kinds of local unpleasantness in the next three years.
From 1895 to 2002, no Utah governor died in office or resigned. All the governors' terms stood neatly in a row in increments of 4 or 8 or 12 years. Now -- Utah will have FOUR governors in a row with uneven terms. It seems so untidy.
Leavitt 1993 to 2003
Walker 2003 to 2005
Huntsman 2005 to 2009+
Herbert 2009- to whenever
I find it amusing to see what AP considered "liberal" reform.
The liquor reform is mostly image and could not possibly come at a worse possible time. If we want to get serious about real private insurance reform, then the Utah government first needs to get real public health reform, which means less smoking, less illicit drugs, less alcohol not more alcohol, less marijuana, less sugar, more exercise, more healthy fruits and vegetables.
AP forgets to mention that his support of civil union legislation in Utah fell on completely deaf and bigoted ears in the Utah legislature -- or as we locals refer to it out here in the west -- the Politburo.
I do not look forward to the upcoming special election for governor. Poor Governor-designate Gary Herbert. I do not envy him. While Huntsman leave us for the glamour and sophistication and glittering social seasons of Beijing, Herbert gets stuck in Salt Lake City with all our unpleasant problems associated with the Great Depression of 2009 plus and all the social and governmental reforms that need tending and caring.
Heaven only knows that we should base the election on sound conservative economics, health insurance reform, health care reform, public education finance reform, county boundary reform. Unfortunately, it will probably get bogged down in whether or not only heterosexuals should have the right to multiple sex partners and easy divorces.
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