For Bush, the Welcome Mat Seems a Little Less Welcoming

As you go about your daily activities on behalf of your Bureau or Office, please be alert to the need to remove all picture and statements from Ambassador Tobias in light of his resignation dated as of April 27, 2007. You should carefully review any ongoing projects such as Websites, reception room walls, printed publications, brochures, PowerPoints, newsletters, etc., to ensure that Agency materials are not maintained, produced, printed, or reprinted, with Tobias listed or shown as Administrator or DFA.

All projects that have been reviewed previously and approved by LPA in the last several months but that are still in the production process must be immediately stopped and re-submitted if they contain articles, statements, or pictures of Tobias. If you have any questions or specific concerns, please contact me and I will work with you on correcting the final product and obtaining re-clearance before continuing with the production process.

We're told this white-out is required by some rule or regulation.

Actually, We Have One More

Okay, so this is the last Tobias item. Really. No mas. Can barely remember his name. Anyway, we've found one example of why he was so beloved by AID officials. The State Department and AID routinely send lists of top employees up for promotion to the Senate for approval.

State's list went to the Senate just before Christmas and their raises were in their January paychecks. But the list of 20 AID employees up for promotion never went anywhere, the American Foreign Service Association says, because Tobias didn't do anything with it.

So the AID folks lost several months' pay for no particular reason. Finally, after what's-his-name quit over some gals' massages, the AID brass quickly sent up the list and the raises should be in the mail shortly.

A Rood Awakening?

When John Rood was nominated to be assistant secretary of state for international security last year, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) reportedly noted that Rood appeared to have a great future but seemed a little too young and inexperienced for the job. But he was a staunch neocon, and with the Republicans in charge, the Senate approved the nomination.

But now Rood, 38, has been nominated to move up to be undersecretary for arms control and international security, and Biden is running the Foreign Relations Committee. The nomination is said to be dead because of Rood's youth and inexperience.

Given the administration's policy changes on Iran and North Korea, changes bitterly contested by leading neocons, perhaps it's just as well. Administration folks are calling around asking for other names for the job. Maybe Robert Einhorn, President Bill Clinton's assistant secretary for nonproliferation, is available?

Wyoming-Bound

Minerals Management Service Director Johnnie Burton, who was roundly attacked by Democrats and Republicans in Congress for not aggressively pursuing billions of dollars in royalties from oil and gas companies from their operations in the Gulf, has called it quits. Burton is heading back to Wyoming, where she was director of the state revenue department and had been a member of the state House of Representatives.