The current U.S. Ambassador in Haiti has been raising eyebrows ever since she allowed herself to be photographed, at the 2013 Carnival of Jacmel, happily walking down the carnival parade route with Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, in a somewhat intimate posture with their arms around each other’s waist.

As a lady and the ambassador of the United States of America, she should have known that such a pose with the prime minister, a known womanizer, would raise issues about her virtues, her reputation and her diplomatic effectiveness with different local stakeholders regarding U.S. policy in Haiti.

In fact, observers of Haiti’s political scene have noted a curiousrapprochement between the ambassador and the prime minister in the form of tacit or open support for the latter’s government, even on decisions that adversely impact U.S. interests or democratic development in her host country. What is going on here?

Has the ambassador succumbed to what she sees as the prime minister’s irresistible personal charms to the point that she now finds unimportant her official mission in Haiti, or has there been a U.S. policy toward Haiti to be supported in the first place?  Has the lady ambassador taken notice of the anti-Americanism permeating the actions of this prime minister around the world, or the unspeakable corruption and defiance of the rule of law being demonstrated by Mr. Lamothe and his government in Haiti?

Haitians believe they can count on the United States of America to rein in the Government of Haiti in its excesses on human rights and other forms of abuses of power, including blatant corruption. If a U.S. ambassador crosses the line in what Haitian culture definesas proper etiquette, especially with regards to romantic adventures with GOH’s political figures, the diplomatic influence of the United States in Haiti is lessened, most certainly, and no good can come out of it.