Negroponte to State? You Heard It Here First.

By Al Kamen
Friday, January 5, 2007

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte's selection as deputy secretary of state was not, despite his public demurrals, shocking news.

Loop Fans may recall that on Nov. 15, not long after we first heard the deal was struck -- the delay apparently was finding a replacement for Negroponte -- we noted that he "was said to be unhappy" as DNI and "itching to move to a diplomatic post," maybe something like "deputy secretary of state."

The reasons, we wrote, were obvious: "The diplo world is home, because he has served as ambassador to Honduras, Iraq, the Philippines and the United Nations. Also, being deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice wouldn't be so bad, because at heart she's a sharing person."

We hear she's thinking of handing him such fine portfolios as Northeast Asia -- where he can deal with the Chicoms and the lunatic North Koreans -- and Iraq. That's two-thirds of the Axis of Evil (A of E) all for himself.

Of course, in a C-SPAN interview aired Dec. 3, Negroponte, when asked about his plans, said, "In my own mind at least, I visualize staying . . . through the end of the administration." And he reiterated that in a Dec. 14 chat with Washington Post reporters and editors.

But Negroponte is a guy who clearly can't hold a job. This would be his fourth since joining the administration just over five years ago. And the chatter has already begun that he may not be in this one too long before he moves up one level.

The Lowest of the High: Former Veep

John Nance Garner famously said being vice president wasn't worth "a warm bucket of spit." (Apparently he didn't say "spit," but reporters cleaned up the language.) Well, imagine what being a former vice president is worth.

And there they were, the three living former veeps who never made it to the Oval Office, lingering after Gerald R. Ford's funeral at Washington National Cathedral. Former presidents Carter, Bush and Clinton and their wives had all been escorted out to their limousines and motorcades.

But Walter F. Mondale, Dan Quayle and Al Gore were left to cool their heels in a long line that didn't seem to move for 20 or 30 minutes, our colleague Peter Baker reports. Quayle was first to break under the pressure. Alone and unbothered by others, he broke out of the line, moved around the chairs and crept around the line to the front to try to see why it wasn't moving. Mondale and Gore showed a little more patience -- they and stood and waited behind a hundred or so people who have never been one heartbeat away from the presidency. They fidgeted and tried to make small talk.

Eventually they, too, couldn't take it and, with their wives, bolted out of line in search of an exit through which they could actually leave the building. (No truth to the speculation that the line wasn't moving because Bill Clinton planted himself outside the door to shake hands with everyone leaving.)

Who Might KBR Intend to Fund?

'Twas the day after Christmas and Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the U.S. military's largest contractor in Iraq, was filing its forms with the Federal Election Commission to set up its new political action committee, KBRPAC.

So why was the company, which just agreed to pay the government $8 million to settle allegations of overbilling for work in the Balkans and which has a number of False Claims Act and congressional investigations pending, setting up its very own PAC? Most likely because it's spinning off from parent Halliburton and needs its own operation. Or it could be because of two words: Henry Waxman.

Osama's Not Dead; He's Resting

And now, the Monty Python Dead Parrot Award for 2006. It's always best to wait till the very end of the year before declaring the winner of this prestigious spinmeister award -- given in honor of the iconic scene in which Michael Palin, as a pet-shop owner, insists that the obviously dead parrot he just sold John Cleese's character is merely napping.

And, sure enough, the winning entry came in on Dec. 28, when CNN's Ed Henry interviewed White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.

Henry pressed her to admit that the administration's failure to kill or capture Osama bin Laden in the past five years was, well, a failure. She wouldn't.

"Well, I'm not sure," Townsend said. "It's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure."

Britain, Finally in the Black

A happy new year to the Brits, who began 2007 debt-free for the first time since World War II. The British, according to wire services, transferred $84 million to the U.S. Treasury, the final installment in repayment of a $4.34 billion loan made in 1945 so they could stave off bankruptcy after having spent almost all their resources fighting Nazi Germany.

The loan, the equivalent of $232 billion in today's money, according to Bloomberg News, was double the size of Britain's economy at the time.

Castro's Down but Not Out

Meanwhile, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro sent a New Year's Eve message to the media to mark his 48 years in power. "Regarding my recovery," he said in the note read on state television, "I have always warned that it could be a prolonged process, but it is far from being a lost battle."

Castro, according to the Associated Press, "said he was still 'in the loop' when it came to matters of state."