Hightower Lowdown

To become a U.S. ambassador and preside at one of our 160 embassies around the world usually requires a degree in international studies, fluency in one or more foreign languages, years of experience in the foreign service, and proven diplomatic ability. Or you can simply be a rich person who raises lots of campaign dough.

There are about 50 people in line to get ambassadorial appointments from George W. It's a diverse group of men and women, folks of many ethnicities and from every region of the country. But nearly all of them have one thing in common: They gave big bucks for Bush's presidential run.

Take Howard Leach, for example, a San Francisco banker who put up $282,000 for Republicans last year. He was one of W.'s "Pioneers"—the insider group who collected at least $100,000 apiece for the Bush campaign. In addition, he gave another $100,000 for Bush's inaugural festivities.

Now he's going to be our ambassador to France. Aside from being rich, Howard's not known to have any actual credentials to be our nation's top representative in Paris . . . but he is said to be studying French.

Also getting plum postings abroad are Mercer Reynolds and William DeWitt Jr., two Cincinnati guys who bailed out Bush in 1984 when the oil company he started went bust. These two later brought George into a sweetheart deal with the Texas Rangers baseball team—a deal in which Bush literally was given $12.5 million for doing nothing.

Reynolds and DeWitt also were Bush "Pioneers" last year, and each of them put up $100,000 for his inaugural. Darn good investments, it turns out.