Desert Sand in Iraq, Sandbags in Iowa, and . . .

No Fun

For those truly desperate to get out of town next week, we can offer an all-Democrats, 11-day trip to Africa leaving this morning. It's being led by Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), who chairs the House Democracy Assistance Commission. Price, along with Reps. Lois Capps (Calif.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Mel Watt (N.C.) and Brad Miller (N.C.), eight congressional aides and four military escorts, is headed to a number of countries, including Liberia, Congo, Kenya, Malawi and Mauritania.

In addition to meetings with heads of state, there are endless conferences and meetings about budgeting, legislative research and other exciting topics. There are visits to HIV/AIDS and other health facilities and to food programs.

We've had a peek at the schedule, and -- while Kenya always offers some fine safari possibilities -- the lawmakers are scarcely taking advantage of the river cruising, sightseeing or shopping that can be had in many places. Other than a trip to the market and a park or two, few excursions are planned.

As a result, the trip is simply not up to Loop standards and cannot be recommended. Of course, you can always make your own schedule once you arrive.

Al-Huh?

It's not been a great week for the al-Hurra television network, the curious administration media venture that is intended to counter America's inexplicably negative poll ratings amongst folks in the Middle East.

On Sunday, CBS's "60 Minutes" led with a brutal piece -- produced with the new nonprofit investigative group ProPublica -- that ripped the Arabic-language news channel for, among other things, spending about half a billion dollars over four years to garner a minuscule audience compared with powerhouse al-Jazeera and Saudi Arabia's al-Arabiya, which holds down second place.

A story in The Washington Post this week noted that a new anchor greeted the network's mostly Muslim viewers on Easter by saying, "Jesus is risen today."

Al-Hurra, based in Springfield, Va., is part of the State Department's overall public diplomacy operation. It had the nifty idea of running unrebutted coverage of a Holocaust-denial conference live from downtown Tehran and gave lengthy live coverage to a speech by Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. And the station apparently had Hezbollah supporters hard at work for the news operation.

Then there was that uncomfortable follow-up article Tuesday by ProPublica's Dafna Linzer about all the former Bush and Clinton officials and media types who have been paid to appear on the U.S.-government-funded network. Most media ethics folks consider taking government money to be, at a minimum, bad form.

The list included luminaries such as Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; David Corn, the Washington Bureau chief of Mother Jones; and Washington Times reporters Bill Gertz and Joseph Curl. Most guests were paid in the range of $300 to $600 per appearance.

Our favorite example -- and an illustration of true outside-the-box thinking -- was an appearance by Danny Ayalon, Israel's former ambassador to Washington, who was paid $500 to explain the New Hampshire primaries to an Arab audience.

Then came news that a former al-Hurra employee was arrested June 6 for trying to break into the White House a few days after he lost his job as a production assistant. Homam Ali, 22, of Lorton told a Secret Service officer he wanted to "pass classified information on to the president concerning Iraq," according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

He left, but returned a few minutes later and tried to force his way into the visitors' exit. Two officers arrested him.