Personnel May Wish to Sleep in Another Country

The brochure says Crawford, now a "Senior Counsel, Policy Directions, Inc." will discuss "International Pharmaceutical Regulation and Compliance: Comparisons and Contrasts." He might want to discuss how the Chinese dealt with their recently beheaded former food-and-drug chief.

Delegation Frustration

There appears to be some grousing at the embassy in Beijing these days over the large "delegation" of family and friends of Ambassador Clark Randt (Yale '68), who are now finishing up a 15-day tour of the country -- including a neat trip to Inner Mongolia to see the Hohhot grasslands, watch a horseback-riding exhibition, drive to the Gobi Desert and visit Genghis Khan's home town.

First off, the group, staying at the Grand Hyatt Beijing -- we prefer the Peninsula, but the Hyatt's also fine -- toured Beijing and took in the embassy's Fourth of July celebration.

Then it was off by plane with the ambassador, first to Inner Mongolia and then down to lovely Hangzhou for the famous pagoda and the West Lake. Today the group is hanging at the very tony Fuchun golf and spa resort in Hangzhou before heading back to Beijing for various flights home Sunday.

We had heard embassy staffers helped with the group's arrangements. But an embassy spokeswoman, via e-mail, assured us the embassy "did not incur any expenses related to this private visit." What's more, "embassy staff did not make any arrangements for travel that did not involve Ambassador Randt."

And we should note that the only travel that "involved" Randt was the 10-day Mongolia and Hangzhou jaunts, not the delegation's entire trip.

Seems Like Old Times

In these troubled times, it's good to know that some things can survive a bad spell. So we were pleased to hear the other day that, despite a recent spate of negative publicity, former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, now at the American Enterprise Institute, and Shaha Riza, apparently still working at the World Bank, were at the traditional Fourth of July picnic hosted by Hudson Institute chief executive Kenneth Weinstein.

This three-decade-old event, heavily populated by devotees of the late neocon guru and former University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss, drew 80 or so political scientists and their families, we were told. Other notables included Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and William Galston, the University of Maryland political theorist and former Clinton White House senior aide.