[Tomte]

Former speaker of the chancellor (and TV news anchor before that) is German ambassador to Israel. Next ambassador will be a career politician.

It‘s not uncommon, though I‘d say even the „cool posts“ like Paris or London usually go to career diplomats.

[bondarchuk]

I know nothing about this but JumpCrisscross seems to use "political" to mean "has donated large sums of money" while your use of "political" is more like.. someone who does politics.

[nxobject]

I think they're using it in a technical sense that's idiosyncratic to America: "career" members of the Foreign Service Corps, versus "political" appointees that can be directly appointed at higher ranks, but at the pleasure of the (in turn politically-appointed) secretary.

The first might have joined the Foreign Service and worked their way up; the second might have had a career elsewhere (not necessarily in political office), get invited to work for an administration, and then leave once there's a change in power.