By Al Kamen
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thousands of National Guard troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others have been rushed to the flood-ravaged Midwest.
Hundreds of their top state and national leaders were also away from home this week, deployed to protect the Eastern Caribbean from infiltration by our enemies.
Yes, it's the Adjutants General Association of the United States Spring Conference on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, aptly titled "Guarding Paradise With Culture and Spice."
The week-long gathering of the top brass -- with a separate agenda for spouses that includes much touring, boating and shopping -- is being held at the spectacular Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort, with great golfing opportunities and other luxury amenities for the bargain government rate of only $260 a night.
Don't worry: There are half-day meeting sessions on the schedule, allowing plenty of time for all to relax and enjoy the beauty of the islands they are protecting.
By one estimate, the total bill to taxpayers for lodging, per diem and travel should easily top $1 million. (The National Guard budget shortfalls these days exceed $10 billion.)
Well, paradise can always use protection. Next year's meeting is in Jackson Hole, Wyo. In June.
No GoBad news on the travel front. We had planned a Four-Loop rating for a spectacular congressional delegation to be led by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) to Easter Island and the Galapagos during the upcoming Fourth of July recess.
It's unclear how Easter Island -- one of the most isolated places on Earth, at 2,200 miles off Chile in the Pacific -- is essential to foreign or domestic policy considerations. But who cares? What a fantastic conversation starter! Amaze your friends, confound your rivals with tales and photos of those extraordinary large stone statues, the "moai," for which the island is famous.
Alas, when we called for reservations on the military jet, Shelby's office told us he "has canceled the trip due to scheduling conflicts and will be at home during the recess."
The initial itinerary, we had heard, was just about perfect. It centered on three days going to and from the island with a stop in the Galapagos. But apparently there were problems getting reservations on the Galapagos for the delegation's preferred night. There are, after all, just so many codels the hotels can accommodate.
If it's rescheduled, we'll try to reserve some spots.
No FunFor 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.
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