The American Pundit

Republican Governor Jon Huntsman will reportedly resign and accept President Barack Obama’s nomination of him to be ambassador to China.

Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will resign and accept an appointment as ambassador to China, ABC 4 has confirmed.

A press conference has been called for Saturday morning at the White House to announce the appointment.

The appointment will most likely mean that Gary Herbert will become Utah’s next governor. Since Huntsman has only served a few months into his second term, a special election will most likely be called in 2010.

The U.S. Senate will have to confirm the appointment.

A few things here. First of all, be prepared for the media to use this cross-aisle appointment to praise Barack Obama for ringing in a new era of bipartisanship. It’ll ignore the fact that President Bush appointed a Democrat as ambassador Australia and Japan, to be Secretary of Transportation, to be Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, as Secretary of the Army, and to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It’ll ignore that President Clinton appointed Republican ambassadors, as well as the fact that Wikipedia actually has an entire entry just for cross-aisle appointments dating back to 1794.

Second, Huntsman isn’t the worst possible choice for Chinese ambassador. Not only does he speak Mandarin (the dominant language) fluently, but he and his wife adopted a baby girl from the country. He also has experience serving as a foreign representative, as he formerly served as ambassador to Singapore.

Finally, Michelle Malkin points out that Huntsman was recently booed by protesters at the Salt Lake City tea party. Not terribly relevant to his appointment, but interesting to note.

One More Thought: Don’t be surprised if the media hooks onto this as significant news tomorrow. Not only for the reasons stated three paragraphs above, but because the Pelosi/waterboarding story is getting ugly and it gives them an excuse to change the topic.