Obama seems to have lucked out with Rivkin. As his 2008 campaign's California finance co-chair, Rivkin was one of his top fundraisers, also known as "bundlers." Along with Rivkin's fellow political ambassadors considered successful during Obama's first term, such as John Roos in Japan, there have been those who were fired or forced to resign -- a familiar occurrence in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Both Rivkin and Roos are expected to leave their posts soon.

Caroline Kennedy was reported by Bloomerg News to be Roos' likely replacement. For Paris, the leading candidate is said to be Marc Lasry, CEO of a global investment firm. After considering Vogue editor Anna Wintour for London, the White House has apparently decided on Matthew Barzun, another business executive and Obama's ambassador to Sweden from 2009 until 2011. In a recent Pennsylvania State University study on the cost of political ambassadorships, the post in France came out on top in terms of "bundled contributions," with $4.4 million, while London requires $640,000. Bundled contributions are generally considered more important than personal ones.

Interviews with hundreds of career diplomats and dozens of political appointees for my recently published book, America's Other Army, revealed that many political ambassadors have no realistic concept about what diplomacy is in the 21st century or what it takes to lead a U.S. embassy today.

That doesn't mean that all political ambassadors are bad or that they shouldn't exist -- in fact, some of them put to shame career diplomats. The Foreign Service sees clear benefits to having them because of their personal relationships with the president and the need for an outside perspective in any government bureaucracy. The problem with political ambassadors is that there are too many -- about 30 percent on average -- and that their lack of at least some skills and background needed for the job is apparently no barrier to an appointment. After all, most don't even speak the language of their host country.

"Why is ours the only profession where it's considered acceptable to appoint someone without any experience?" said Steven Kashkett, a Foreign Service officer and former vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, a union of diplomats. "Would you appoint someone to head a hospital without medical experience?" Other career diplomats went as far as to suggest that ambassadorships should be treated like top military appointments, saying the president would never make a "bundler" a general -- and both the Armed Forces and the Foreign Service are in the business of national security, they said

Public perceptions about what an ambassador does are grossly inaccurate or outdated, which most political appointees learn the hard way. Gone are the days when an ambassador was just "the face" of the United States in a foreign country. In the complex international relations of the 21st century, being at the helm of a U.S. embassy that houses many government agencies -- sometimes with competing interests -- is no easy job.