The Cable
The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

You are cordially uninvited…

President George W. Bush’s Harvard Business School friend, U.S. ambassador to Hungary April H. Foley, was scheduled to have a farewell party at the embassy in Budapest next Wednesday. But the going-away shindig has been canceled, as Foley’s ambassadorship has suddenly been extended a few months. The following notice was obtained by The Cable: Foley, ...

589687_090109_aprilfoley2.jpg
589687_090109_aprilfoley2.jpg

President George W. Bush's Harvard Business School friend, U.S. ambassador to Hungary April H. Foley, was scheduled to have a farewell party at the embassy in Budapest next Wednesday. But the going-away shindig has been canceled, as Foley's ambassadorship has suddenly been extended a few months. The following notice was obtained by The Cable:

President George W. Bush’s Harvard Business School friend, U.S. ambassador to Hungary April H. Foley, was scheduled to have a farewell party at the embassy in Budapest next Wednesday. But the going-away shindig has been canceled, as Foley’s ambassadorship has suddenly been extended a few months. The following notice was obtained by The Cable:

Foley, who became ambassador in 2006, applied for a six-month extension on her time in Budapest in November, but we’re told Foggy Bottom said no. So why is she sticking around?

Well, when Foley was first appointed to head the Export-Import bank in 2003, the Washington Post‘s Al Kamen reported that “she used to date George W. Bush when both were at Harvard Business School and has remained friends with him.” A source suggests Bush personally asked Obama at a meeting of current, future and former U.S. presidents this past week to give Foley an extension on her Budapest ambassadorship gig.

Asked about that, a White House spokeswoman said her colleague Dana Perino had made clear numerous times that the conversation between presidents was private.

Laura Rozen writes The Cable daily at ForeignPolicy.com.

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