I'll Have My Chief of Staff Call Your Chief of Staff's Chief of Staff

The administration's Agency for International Development population policies have been fiercely antiabortion, and HIV-prevention programs have chiefly promoted abstinence.

A Summer Vacation in Sunny Iraq

Members of Congress have been furious about Iraqi parliament plans to take a two-month vacation this summer.

"I have raised this with officials at various levels, including the prime minister," Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, said in Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday, our colleague Karen DeYoung reported. The response at the prime minister level, he said, is that "it shouldn't be two months. One month. It shouldn't be a week. Maybe a weekend."

"They have the same sense a lot of Americans have: . . . 'How can you go away for the summer when you've got both Iraqi and American soldiers out there fighting and dying?' "

So what's going to happen? "In the new Iraq, the Maliki administration cannot order" the parliament to do what the Maliki government wants. "I hope they'll do the responsible thing," Crocker said.

The EPA Guide to Aging

It's Older Americans Month and the Environmental Protection Agency's office of civil rights "invites you to a lecture as part of" that celebration, a flyer at the agency said.

And the speaker? Noted surgeon Craig R. Dufresne, who's a clinical professor of -- what else? -- plastic surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center.

But his topic is "Look Better, Feel Better: A Non-Surgical Approach for Looking Younger for Those 40 and Over." (Forty?) Of course, if the "non-surgical approach" doesn't work, maybe he's available for a little nip here, a tuck there? His chat is Tuesday at 1:30. Best to get there early.

Waning Interest in Parliament?

So former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is running for president? But an old book from his personal library, "Why America Needs Parliamentary Government," by William S. Field, is being sold on eBay.

"This item will come with a certificate of authenticity that proves this book does in fact come from Mr. Romney's personal collection," the seller says. "Quite a unique item to own!"

Guess he's changed his mind again. . . .

For Loyal Service, a Posting to Sudan

Loop Fans recall Alberto Fernandez, head of public diplomacy for the Mideast, who, somewhat undiplomatically, said the administration had been arrogant and stupid in its Iraq venture. In Arabic. On al-Jazeera.

His boss, Undersecretary Karen Hughes, defended him against the usual calls for discipline. Now he's going to be chief of mission to Sudan. We know what you're thinking, but State folks swear this is not a punishment. Not at all, a great posting. He was in competition with former deputy spokesman Adam Ereli for the top job at the embassy on the island of Bahrain, but Ereli got that one.

Look, we're not buying this, but that's what they said.

From Foreign Policy to Philanthropy

Meanwhile, longtime foreign policy guru Barry Lowenkron, who has worked at the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department's policy planning shop and now is assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, is moving to Chicago to be vice president for global security and sustainability at the MacArthur Foundation. He'll be overseeing grants of about $75 million a year going to about 65 countries. (And he'll probably be a very popular fellow.)