An Especially Special Diplomatic Corps

The State Department back during the Clinton administration had a fair number of special envoys for this issue and that. The Bush folks came in and vowed not to follow that pattern -- though there were some exceptions for limited times and special issues, such as sending retired Gen. Joseph W. Ralston to quiet things down between Turkey and Iraq over renegade Kurdish fighters using Iraq as a haven.

But Hillaryland has restored the tradition with a vengeance, with special envoys popping up for most everything. In addition to various "specials" for North Korea, Southwest Asia, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Guantanamo Bay, there's likely to be a special envoy for European energy issues. That's a fancy name for someone to work on undercutting the annoying Russian stranglehold on European natural gas and on fuel supplies in general.

This week, there was even a not-quite-special envoy, the highly regarded Jonathan Pershing of the World Resources Institute, who was named deputy special envoy for climate change. Longtime State Department watchers believe this may be the first such job designation. (There will surely be a principal-assistant-deputy-special-envoy job title before long.)

The rationale appears to be that in using special envoys you avoid messy confirmation and you get people moving quickly with the special imprimatur. On the other hand, you demote everyone below them in trying to run the important matters of the department outside the traditional machinery, and meetings get even larger and more frequent.

Then there are the poor folks trying to do organizational charts to make sense of it all.

FLOWER POWER

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- the folks who put up those spy satellites -- is apparently trying to gussy up its St. Louis campus. The spy spooks have put out a request for "20 silk floral arrangements," including "all plants, containers, brackets, and staging materials" for the purchase.

They know precisely what they want. The order specifies "Two 48" Rectangle Planter Arrangements" with three "Silk Dark Green Sansevieria 23 leaves," some foam gray-green leaves and four "21" Silk Bromeliads (2 Red & 2 Yellow.)"

They also want seven wall sconces (with "Silk Exotic Foliage" and "10" Foam Aechmea") and a planter with one "6' Warneckii Cane 10 Foliage Heads."

Naturally, we couldn't get a response as to why they needed this stuff or what's been budgeted for this. (The number of employees, budget and so on are secret.) They just had a job fair, so maybe someone walked into the lobby and noticed that the place looked drab. And, of course, the silk flowers can be moved around, don't need watering, look like the real thing . . .

THE FOGGY BOTTOM LINE

Used to be that governments worldwide would strain to parse the words of the State Department's spokesman at the daily press briefing, looking for clues to policy shifts or messages, trying to glean insights into the thinking of the top officials at Foggy Bottom.

Maybe that's why some might have been taken aback by a remark Monday by spokesman Robert Wood, sparring with Fox News reporter James Rosen over policy toward Sudanese strongman Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who's been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir showed up Monday in Eritrea despite an arrest warrant issued by the ICC on those charges.

After some jousting back and forth, Rosen noted that Wood was "in the habit of urging [Bashir] to do certain things" and asked, "Is one of the things that you are urging him to do, to turn himself in?" "Look," Wood said, bobbing here, weaving there, "that is a decision he has to make for himself. There is an . . . indictment out from the ICC on this. You know, he, in the end, is going to do what he feels is in his best interest. Frankly, as I've said, those who are responsible for committing these types of atrocities have got to be held accountable. But I -- you know, sure, he should turn himself in. There's no question about that. But what I say from the podium here doesn't really matter . . ."