P.J. Crowley's top 10 tweets

This is from Josh Rogin over at The Cable.

P.J. Crowley's top 10 tweets

When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned on Sunday afternoon, the U.S. diplomatic establishment didn't just lose its top spokesman -- it also lost one of its most prolific, entertaining, and sharp-tongued tweeters. Since Crowley began tweeting in May 2010, he's told off dictators, criticized Congress, and talked some baseball as well, 140 characters at a time.

Crowley's Twitter personality mirrored his real-life personality -- affable, edgy, sometimes sarcastic, and occasionally a little off-message. Crowley's energy and willingness to take measured risks by going beyond the Obama administration's standard talking points is what endeared him to the reporters he worked with each day. It was that same openness that cost him his job, after he admitted that he believed the Marine Corps' treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Private Bradley Manning was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Crowley's last tweet before resigning was a gem, but he deleted it. "We've been watching hopeful #tsunami sweep across #MiddleEast. Now seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan," read the March 11 tweet.

Of the remaining 400-plus tweets he sent out to his 24,000-plus followers, here are The Cable's top 10, in reverse chronological order:

March 1, 7:08 a.m.: "#Qaddafi tells #ABCNews: All my people with me, they love me. They will die to protect me. The #Libyan people tell Qaddafi: You go first!"

[...]

Feb. 22, 7:28 p.m.: "We are surprised that #Argentina has chosen not to resolve a simple dispute involving training equipment. And we still want our stuff back."


Feb. 16, 7:56 a.m.: "#KimJongIl's son attended an #EricClapton concert in Singapore? Actually, the #DearLeader himself would benefit from getting out more often."


Jan. 22, 5:40 a.m.: "The claim by the lawyer for #JulianAssange that his client could go to #Guantanamo is pure legal fantasy. Save it for the movie."

[...]

Aug. 27, 5:38 p.m.: "Americans should heed our #travel warning and avoid North Korea. We only have a handful of former Presidents. http://go.usa.gov/cAO #DPRK"

You can read the entire article here.

PJ started tweeting while I worked for him, and I used to love to listen to him come up with some zingers (the best ones never got published). The Cable left out two of my favs that did though:

June 11:
@chavezcandanga sings to @SecClinton? Can #Vegas be far behind? Maybe he should stay in Vegas.

May 12:
Heard that Hugo Chavez has 200 people helping him tweet. Here at State, I have two. Out-numbered, but not out-gunned.

Absolutely.

PJ Crowley Resigns over Manning Remark

I saw this today over at The Skeptical Bureaucrat, and I am sad to see it. As you probably know, I worked for PJ in my last assignment and I had, and continue to have, a lot of respect for him.

To me, this is just one more reason to hate Bradley Manning, Julian ASSange, and Wikileaks.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

Sources close to the matter the resignation, first reported by CNN, came under pressure from the White House, where officials were furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks.

Speaking to a small group at MIT last week, Crowley was asked about allegations that Manning is being tortured and kicked up a firestorm by answering that what is being done to Manning by Defense Department officials "is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Crowley did add that "nonetheless, Bradley Manning is in the right place" because of his alleged crimes, according to a blog post by BBC reporter Philippa Thomas, who was present at Crowley's talk.

[...]

Crowley has told friends that he is deeply concerned that mistreatment of Manning could undermine the legitimate prosecution of the young private. Crowley has also made clear he has the Obama administration's best interests at heart because he thinks any mistreatment of Manning could be damaging around the world to President Obama, who has tried to end the perception that the U.S. tortures prisoners.

Nevertheless, Crowley's political fate was sealed on Friday when Obama was asked at a White House news conference about his comments regarding Manning.

Obama revealed that he had asked Pentagon officials "whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of (Manning's) confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards."

In a comment that drew howls of protest from liberals, Obama added that Pentagon officials "assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well."

[...]

Crowley is highly respected on foreign policy matters, dating back to his time as National Security Council spokesman under then-President Bill Clinton. He has been the Obama administration's public face on many international stories as the daily briefer at the State Department for Secretary Hillary Clinton.

But he has not had a completely smooth relationship with officials in the Obama White House, and eyebrows were raised several months ago when White House aide Mike Hammer was sent over to the State Department to serve as Crowley's deputy.

Hammer will replace Crowley as the assistant secretary for public affairs, Hillary Clinton said in a statement Sunday.

She said she accepted Crowley's resignation "with regret."

"Coddling the Enemy," AKA You gotta be kidding me

Did you hear the latest swipe Sarah Palin took at the State Department. Apparently, she thinks we are "coddling" Ahmadinejad because my old boss, the Department spokesman, tweeting him a birthday greeting.

She is in sore need of a life. Someone buy her one please.

PJ, by the way, is a retired Air Force Colonel. He is deeply committed to this country. And he has sharp wit. I love his tweets...remember the one about Chavez singing to the Secretary? Good stuff.

So here's what he said to Ahmadinejad:

# Happy birthday President #Ahmadinejad. Celebrate by sending Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home. What a gift that would be. #Iran 2:30 PM Oct 28th via web

# Your 54th year was full of lost opportunities. Hope in your 55th year you will open #Iran to a different relationship with the world. 2:31 PM Oct 28th via web

Hoping for the release of the hikers. You remember them, right? Hoping for a different relationship between Iran and the world. Gosh. That would be awful, right?

Now as you might also know, Sarah Palin tweets.

Here are her responses to PJ.

# Happy B'day Ahmadinejad wish sent by US Govt. Mind boggling foreign policy: kowtow & coddle enemies; snub allies. Obama Doctrine is nonsense about 12 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

# Americans awaken 2 bizarre natl security thinking of Obama Admn: Ahmadinejad b'day greeting after call 4 Israel's destruction speaks volumes about 11 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

According to DiploPundit, AFP reported that Crowley defended on Friday, saying:

"My tweet was simply to suggest that a reasonable celebration of President Ahmadinejad's birthday would be to release Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal," Crowley told reporters."I can't imagine why Sarah Palin would object to the release of the two hikers who remain in custody, we think inappropriately," he said.

DiploPundit can't imagine either: "Unless of course, whoever writes these tweets was a) thinking only of twitter mileage, b) has no freakin idea who are Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, 3) knows but no care, d) insert one more funny gunny grizzled bearly reason. In any case, the "lamestream" media apparently is paying enough attention to report this great development. So hilarity all around. Har...har...har..."

And people want her to be our next President. Sigh.

State Dept. plans new public diplomacy posts

This is in today's Washington Times and discusses the changes coming to Public Diplomacy as announced in Under Secretary McHale's strategic vision report.

State Dept. plans new public diplomacy posts

By Nicholas Kralev

The State Department plans to create seven new senior positions to ensure that a public-diplomacy perspective is always "incorporated" in policymaking around the world, as well as to respond quickly to negative coverage of the United States in foreign media.

In an ambitious strategy that goes beyond any previous efforts to reach out to other countries, the Obama administration "seeks to become woven into the fabric of the daily lives of people" there, its top public-diplomacy official said Wednesday.

"We must do a better job of listening, learn how people in other countries and cultures listen to us, understand their desires and aspirations, and provide them with information and services of value to them," said Judith A. McHale, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.

Ms. McHale presented the administration's strategy, which emerged from an eight-month review of the government's programs in the field, at a hearing of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee. She repeatedly used the word "narrative" to describe how the United States is being depicted overseas.

"In this information-saturated age, we must do a better job of framing our national narrative. We must become more proactive and less reactive," she said.
"Increasingly, our opponents and adversaries are developing sophisticated media strategies to spread disinformation and rumors, which ignite hatred and spur acts of terror and destruction. We must be ever-vigilant and respond rapidly to their attacks against us," she added.

To spearhead such an effort, the State Department will create a new position of deputy assistant secretary for international media support, who will report to the assistant secretary for public affairs, P.J. Crowley.

Six additional deputy assistant secretary positions will be added to each of the department's so-called regional bureaus, which cover Europe, Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

"These officers will be responsible for ensuring that a public-diplomacy perspective is incorporated as part of senior policy deliberations and for coordinating all our public-diplomacy initiatives throughout their respective regions," Ms. McHale said.

"We are taking steps to ensure that our policies and programs are informed upfront by a clear understanding of attitudes and opinions of foreign publics," she said.

Including public-diplomacy officials in policymaking was also a priority for Karen P. Hughes, undersecretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. She became a full participant in then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior planning meetings, but a true integration of public diplomacy in the policy process has yet to be achieved.

The importance of such an integration across the government was cited by Mrs. Hughes and two other former undersecretaries, James K. Glassman and Evelyn S. Lieberman, during the same hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on international operations and organizations, human rights, democracy and global women's issues.

Mr. Glassman, who succeeded Mrs. Hughes at the end of the Bush administration, said that public diplomacy is "in doubt," because "it is not today being taken seriously as a tool of national security by policymakers."

Mrs. Lieberman, the first occupant of the undersecretary post when it was created at the end of the Clinton administration, said the State Department's "public-diplomacy practitioners are not considered equal" to other diplomats.

At the same time, both Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Glassman cautioned against an obsession with "being liked" by foreigners, which Mrs. Hughes called a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the purpose of public diplomacy.

"Today, in the war of ideas, our core task is not how to fix foreigners' perceptions of the United States, but how to isolate and reduce the threat of violent extremism," Mr. Glassman said.

Ms. McHale, a former CEO and president of Discovery Communications who took office in May, has kept a low profile compared with Mrs. Hughes' high visibility, which was mainly a result of her close personal relationship with Mr. Bush.

Edward P. Djerejian, a former career diplomat and founding director of Rice University's James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy, said there is no doubt that, in the current administration, President Obama is the nation's "top spokesman."

"They are using the president in a major way," said Mr. Djerejian, who headed a congressionally mandated commission on public diplomacy in 2003. "The undersecretary is a coordinator and a substantive manager to ensure the instruments of public diplomacy are used across the government."

Problems in Public Affairs

From the the Washington Post via the Associated Press. Since I am not an idiot, I will just post this without comment.

Internal report raps State Dept media shop

By MATTHEW LEE
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 25, 2010; 8:59 PM

WASHINGTON -- An internal State Department report says the agency's work in publicizing administration foreign policy and its relations with the media have been hurt by poor communication, lack of staffing and uneven leadership in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

A review by the department's inspector general found that some employees had been instructed not to return phone calls to reporters asking sensitive questions and that the environment in one office was so tense and hostile that several workers fear violence.

The report, which was completed last week, was obtained on Thursday by The Associated Press.

The 63-page document also found that the duties of some career employees in the press office had been transferred to political appointees, which contributed to low morale. The report was compiled last fall, months after Hillary Rodham Clinton took the helm at the State Department.

"It's a tough report," said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs who runs the bureau. "What the report shows is that the bureau has many strengths, but it clearly has some organizational weaknesses that we are aggressively trying to correct."

He said corrective action had already been taken on about a third of the problems identified in the report.

The inspector general conducts periodic reviews of each department bureau. The work of the Bureau of Public Affairs is deemed critical to the administration's ability to communicate its foreign policy to the American taxpayer and foreign governments and their publics.

The review praised the skill and professionalism of the spokesmen - both career diplomats and political appointees - who brief reporters daily from the podium at the department's headquarters. It also lauded the bureau's attention to new media and its use of social networking platforms to get out the Obama administration's message.

But it said the operation needed better direction and that a senior front office position empty for more than a year should be filled immediately as its vacancy "contributes significantly to weak bureau management and low morale.

At lower levels, the report said the Office of Press Relations, which in previous administrations has been a primary channel for answering inquiries from the media, had lost much of its role because Clinton's team believed it was not effective.
"Thanks to a perfect storm of administration transition, weak leadership, miscues, misunderstanding, personality conflicts and poor communication, PRS has been marginalized," it said, referring to the press office by its acronym.

The report said the office also may have lost credibility because it had been instructed not to respond to certain questions from reporters.

"Under direction from the front office, PRS does not return some reporters' calls, for inquiries that are deemed sensitive," it said.

Crowley denied there was a policy to ignore certain reporters' phone calls but said in some cases inquiries would be passed along to the front office, adding that calls are returned.

The report's most damaging findings involve the Office of Broadcast Services, which produces and distributes audio and video content to worldwide media outlets. That office, it said, is beset by severe morale problems and hostility between employees and managers.

It said several employees expressed concern "that violence in the workplace could result because of the high levels of workplace animosity and tension." The report called for the current director of the office to be replaced.

Crowley acknowledged "a serious morale issue" in the office and said it was being addressed.

Secretary Of State Clinton's Christmas List For Santa

In the spirit of the holidays, I share a little humor with you from NPR.

Secretary Of State Clinton's Christmas List For Santa
By Frank James

State Department types tend to be seen, and typically see themselves, as very serious individuals dealing as they do with exceedingly weighty matters of foreign policy, of war and peace and everything in between.

But even they like to have a little fun now and again and Christmas seems as good as time as any.

So in the spirit of the season, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley made merry, although in his typically measured way, he chose his words with diplomatic care. (Thanks to NPR's Michele Kelleman for bringing this to our attention.)

CROWLEY: And finally a few of you have asked about the schedule of the secretary of State over the next few days.

I can tell you this morning, the secretary departed Washington. And you know, she stopped at the North Pole for an important bilateral meeting with a well known international figure. During the meeting, in a formal demarche sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," the secretary outlined her aspirations for the new year
.
They include, and feel free to hum along, open and accountable governments, Middle East negotiations, more civilians in Afghanistan, empowerment of women, fewer nuclear weapons, respect for human rights, resolution of historic grievances, treaties through the United States Senate, six-party talks, dialogue with Iran, enough food for people of the world to eat, climate-change legislation and lastly a championship for the Boston Red Sox.
(Cross talk.)

Okay. That last one is not on her list. But Harold Koh and I thought it was important that we mention that here.

ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER: Is it that bad that you have to ask Santa?

Following the secretary's career as we have over the years, we're fairly sure of one thing. She maintained the dignity of her office, and of the U.S., and didn't sit on the "international figure's" knee while making her requests.

Washington Times: Gay Diplomats Get Key Benefits

Clinton: Gay Diplomats Get Key Benefits
Friday, June 19, 2009
Washington Times
By Nicholas Kralev

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued an order Thursday granting diplomatic passports, access to medical care and U.S. government jobs overseas to same-sex partners of U.S. diplomats.

The State Department released a statement by Mrs. Clinton, who worked from home after a bad fall late Wednesday in which she fractured an elbow. She is expected to have surgery within days, spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

Thursday's order marks a significant change in policy, and officials said it goes into effect immediately. The State Department will now cover the moving expenses of domestic partners of gay Foreign Service members on their way to a new assignment, as well as the cost of any emergency evacuation.

"Domestic partners of federal employees have for too long been treated unequally," Mrs. Clinton said. "This change is the right thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do."

Mrs. Clinton's order came a day after President Obama extended to gay federal employees limited benefits, such as paid leave to care for a sick partner but not health coverage. Her directive had been approved in advance by the White House.

Partners of gay and unmarried heterosexual diplomats will now be given language and other training at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington. In addition, they will have priority when applying for employment at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, which is now afforded only to spouses.

"Changing our policy to provide training, medical care and other benefits to same-sex domestic partners will promote the cohesiveness, safety and effectiveness of our posts abroad," Mrs. Clinton said. "It will help the department attract and retain personnel in a competitive environment where domestic partner benefits and allowances are increasingly the norm for world-class employers."

Just before leaving office in late 2000, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright designated domestic partners "members of household," but that did not bring meaningful benefits. Still, it allowed though it did not require ambassadors and other mission managers to extend some limited benefits, such as building passes and access to medical clinics.

Mrs. Clinton's order makes those requirements mandatory.

That would prevent cases like the recent one of a department employee in Mexico whose two sons tested positive for swine flu. The employee was given the anti-viral medication Tamiflu by the diplomatic post's health unit, but the employee's partner was denied the medication until acting Ambassador Leslie Bassett intervened.

"We will implement this policy by changing our Foreign Affairs Manual and the Standardized Regulations to allow the same-sex domestic partners of the department's Foreign Service employees to qualify as family members for a variety of benefits and allowances," Mrs. Clinton said. "Where appropriate, this extension of benefits and allowances will apply to the children of same-sex domestic partners as well."

Jason L. Davis, acting ambassador to Malta and a gay career diplomat, called Mrs. Clinton's order "a huge, positive change."

"With the exception of health insurance, we are now being treated the same as straight families in all the areas that matter most," Mr. Davis said.

Many of the benefits, such as diplomatic passports and certain embassy jobs, are only available to U.S. citizens.

State Department officials also conceded that in some countries, partners of gay diplomats may not be accepted and granted visas by the host government. In many countries around the world, homosexuality is illegal.

"The department also will work with foreign governments to provide same-sex domestic partners, to the extent possible, with diplomatic visas, privileges and immunities, and authorization to work in the local economy," Mrs. Clinton said.