David Ensor to US Embassy Kabul?

Via Al Kamen: “Word at the State Department is that David Ensor, longtime national security correspondent for CNN and more recently executive vice president for communications at Mercuria Energy Group in London, is being talked about to run the public affairs office at the embassy in Kabul.” (links added)

Huh? What? Hmmnn. Why?

Just a couple quick thoughts –

First, I think US Embassy Kabul’s PAS office has done a marvelous job over there. The post that needs help is the other half of Af/Pak, and it’s not Afghanistan. Public diplomacy efforts have taken a beating in Pakistan, and hope and help is probably needed there more than anywhere else.

Second, when was the last time you’ve heard of a non-career appointee run a public affairs shop at the embassy level?

Hmmn, let me see – how about Dan Senor, remember him? Probably most noted as chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in the old days.

The CPA was not quite the embassy but close enough. The Bush II White House, after all called Senor “Advisor to the U.S. Presidential Envoy in Iraq” (that is, Presidential Envoy L. Paul Bremer III, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority).

I've watched Ensor on CNN; I remember him as telegenic; don't know his politics. Before joining CNN, he served as ABC News' diplomatic correspondent from 1995-1998. Still -- I hope no one is trying to replicate the CPA’s “Green Room” in Baghdad at the US Embassy in Kabul …