By Jennifer Stephens on April 25, 2011

‘The Hill’ blogger Christian Heinze recently posted this:

“John Weaver, who’d be a top adviser to a Jon Huntsman campaign, weaves a clever excuse for his guy’s service in the Obama Administration.

“If you’re asked by the president of the United States to serve your country in a foreign policy or national security role and you don’t do it,” Mr. Weaver said, “that’s disqualifying.”

Emphasis added.

Plenty of Republicans would argue that Huntsman’s service for Obama was disqualifying; now Weaver says that turning it down would be disqualifying.”

Mr. Weaver’s Facebook post in response was, “I don’t believe that public service — any form of public service — requires an “excuse.” This is what is wrong with our society and quite frankly, what is wrong with journalism. Or what is left of it. Its easy to sit at home in your pajamas making commentary, its another thing to actually get off your ass and do anything — something — for your fellow countrymen.”

I hate Obama as much as the next Conservative, but have we really gone so far as to condemn public service based on who issued the call to serve? Sure, BO really stinks, but he is (unfortunately) the President of the United States. Who’s next on the list to have their service demeaned because Obama happened to be President? The military? After all, Obama is their Commander in Chief (CinC). It really kills morale to have a bad CinC (I had Clinton, not Obama, but the principle is the same), but that in no way lessons the service.

When asked to serve in China, Huntsman was still early in his second term as Utah Governor, and enjoying 80% approval ratings. It would have been easy for him to say he was already in public office, and refuse the Ambassadorship to China – one of the top US diplomatic posts. But he accepted the call to serve his country, rather than just his state.

The LameStream media likes to call Huntsman “Obama’s Ambassador to China”. Once again, they get it wrong. He is the United States Ambassador to China. In his blog, Heinze called it “Huntsman’s service for Obama”. It was NOT service for Obama. It was service fro the American people. For us. And he served us well, judging from these comments by the Chinese Vice President, as reported by the Associated Press:

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping called Huntsman “an old friend of the Chinese people” who had made “unremitting efforts to promote the exchanges between our two people”.
“Let me express out appreciation for your contributions. We will never forget what you have done,” said Xi, who is expected to begin taking over from President Hu Jintao next year.

Huntsman himself said, “While in China, we serve our country. We don’t do politics.”

And you can bet that if Huntsman had refused the call to serve as Ambassador, Obama and the LameSteam media would be condemning Huntsman for refusing to serve his country due to partisan politics.

As Mr. Weaver said, no form of public service requires an excuse. It is to be commended, not condemned.