[Ip-health] IP-Watch: Rumoured New US Ambassador to UN in Geneva A Major Obama Fundraiser

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/29/rumoured-new-us-ambassador-to-un-=
in-geneva-a-major-obama-fundraiser/

29 July 2009
Rumoured New US Ambassador To UN In Geneva A Major Obama Fundraiser
By Kaitlin Mara and William New @ 4:57 pm

A Northern California academic and a top national fundraiser for
President Obama may be the next US ambassador to the United Nations in
Geneva, according to sources. Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, wife of eBay
CEO and President John Donahoe, holds a law degree, two master=92s
degrees and a PhD, and is rumoured to be the nominee for the post
empty since January.

Donahoe holds a law degree from Stanford University, a PhD in ethics
and social theory from the University of California at Berkeley=92s
Graduate Theological Union, a master=92s in East Asian Studies from
Stanford and a master=92s in theology from Harvard University.

Donahoe was chair of the National Women for Obama Finance Committee,
and according to several sources raised at least US$500,000 for the
president during his candidacy (see, for example, here, here, and
here) as a =91bundler,=92 or someone who organises and gathers funds on
behalf of other supporters.

An article on Donahoe published in Bloomberg News in September 2008
depicts her as an early fan of Senator Obama, offering to raise money
for him before he announced his candidacy. She was reported to have
raised nearly a half million dollars in a single event at her northern
California home in 2007, and over a million dollars for Obama during
his campaign, making her one of the campaign=92s top six bundlers.

She also is involved in energy and environment issues. Dohahoe signed
a 2008 letter from environmentalists in support of Obama, which
praised the then-senator=92s support of renewable energy, including low
carbon alternatives to fossil fuels. She signed as a member of E2
Environmental Entrepreneurs, an advocacy group that bills itself =93the
independent business voice for the environment.=94

But prior to her show of support for Obama, Donahoe=92s experience
included some other political work, such as fundraising for Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. According to the Huffington
Post, she has also contributed to several congressional campaigns.

She is an affiliated scholar at the Center for International Security
and Cooperation at Stanford University, where she researches
humanitarian military intervention (also the topic of her PhD
dissertation at Berkeley).

An excerpt from her 25-year reunion [pdf] at her undergraduate
university Dartmouth College reveals that Donahoe =96 apparently
nicknamed Muffin - had spent =93much of the past several decades either
with my kids or in school myself.=94

She previously served as a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School, was
a high-tech litigation attorney at Fenwick & West in Palo Alto,
California, which has an intellectual property practice, and clerked
at the US Federal District Court in Northern California.

William Fenwick is an IP attorney who also blogs on the intersection
of technology and Zen aesthetics at ValleyZen.com. Fenwick and his
coblogger, Drue Kataoka, wrote after talking to Donahoe at an August
2008 Obama fundraiser: =93Donahoe told me, =91Barack has a natural Zen
approach to things - he is calm and curious - does not get flustered
easily, and is inclined to come up with creative new ways to find
solutions that have not occurred to others before.=92

She graduated from her PhD programme in 2006 having written her thesis
on the moral and ethical framework military interventions for
humanitarian purposes. =93It=92s not that I=92m advocating war, but there
are cases where military force might be necessary, and we=92d better
have a rational or ethical way to decide whether it=92s just or not,=94
she said in an article on the dissertation published in the school
newspaper.

Of her varied academic experiences, she said in the same article, =93I
started with the big philosophical questions and in the end I was
doing policy work.=94

In early 2009, she was named =93woman of the year=94 by Emerge, a training
programme aimed at increasing the number of Democratic women in public
office.

If approved, she would replace Amb. Warren Tichenor, a =93self described
optimist=94 and Texan who served as the ambassador from 2006 to early
2009.

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch.

William New may be reached at wnew@ip-watch.ch.

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997