Scrapbook
Scrapbook The State Department's Disgraceful Memo Last Monday, Oct. 16, a stunning memo arrived at the Voice of America. Officials at the State Department had decided that a VOA editorial...
...Derek Jeter, Mike Piazza, Adam Cly-mer...
...James Barker...
...VOA held the editorial...
...By the end of the day, the editorial had been broadcast...
...He followed with something vague about "this age of e-mail," in which "text can be moved so quickly...
...The rest of us sometimes wonder if wry is code for paltry...
...A grown man paying $15,000 for someone to tell you what to wear...
...Honorable mention to Edward Himmelfarb, Mike Daven, Dianne Himler, Doug Cogan, Doug Jordan, and the Rev...
...It was posted by Matt Drudge on his eponymous website, as well as on weeklystandard.com and other sites...
...policy, or that most American diplomats would agree with it...
...And that was about all he said...
...He never denied it...
...Our favorite came from Mike Antonucci and is either pro-Hillary or a subtle parody of the pro-Hillary camp...
...I don't think that needs to be an issue that we need to get into," Reeker said, in a brush-off that was brazen even by the standards of Clinton administration flacks...
...And there is evidence that more than one person was involved, that the memo was not simply, as Reeker put it, a "glitch...
...It's a town with so many outstanding major-leaguers...
...Oh, but it should be...
...Carly Simon, Eat Your Heart Out Inspired by the news that Carly Simon had written a song "testifying" to the virtues of Hillary Clinton, The Scrapbook a few weeks ago invited readers to share their own Carly Simonesque lyrical gifts...
...I like a newspaper that's predictable...
...They certainly stand up against Simon's own paean to the Senate candidate: "You are so full of grace...
...Either way, he gets extra points for the Godfather reference...
...That person should probably be fired on grammatical grounds alone, judging from the tortured wording and odd spelling...
...She said a white tie is fine but you need some more earth tones...
...Two of the sailors injured in the Cole bombing are from Alabama...
...At a briefing on Wednesday, State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker tried to explain...
...This is not a question of pointing to somebody...
...We especially liked Larry Eubank's couplet: You're so vain, You probably think you're Madame Ceaucescu...
...The people that hear this will not see the separation we are trying to make and relate it directly to the violence...
...But Bush got a lot of laughs at last week's annual Alfred E. Smith dinner in New York...
...And that's where things stood, until the memo was leaked late the following day...
...The Scrapbook, alas, has not yet been granted subpoena power...
...Officials at the State Department had decided that a VOA editorial condemning the terrorist attack on the USS Cole should not be broadcast to foreign countries...
...At the briefing Reeker was asked repeatedly if this was true...
...Just as promptly, the State Department issued a statement disavowing its own memo...
...The 17 or so dead sailers [sic] does not compare to the 100 + Palestinians who have died in recent weeks where we have remained silent...
...The memo, a spokesman declared, was "wrong" and in no way a reflection of U.S...
...Richard Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who promptly drafted a letter to Madeleine Albright demanding an explanation...
...Nor did he reveal who wrote—or e-mailed or moved the text of—the memo...
...Wait a minute, said a reporter, "this specific memo, if it wasn't cleared, how did it get on official State Department stationery with people's phone numbers...
...I can imagine the headline if I win: 'Gore Wins New York City, Setbacks Elsewhere.'" Ba-dump-bump...
...In some ways, the State Department's defense of itself is valid...
...But he didn't...
...Outraged, several of them called Sen...
...The odd thing was, she handed me a bill for $15,000...
...This editorial will reach an audience that is caught up in the violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories," the memo explained...
...Rudy Giuliani, like that guy Luca Brasi Is sleeping with the fishes there tonight...
...When it was a little bit up, they said we were neck-and-neck...
...The fact remains that someone at the State Department with significant enough authority to write such a memo wrote such a memo...
...You'll surely win this race...
...Clinton...
...policy...
...The Wit of George W. Bush nphose who know him well keep X insisting George W. Bush has a wry sense of humor...
...Several questions remain, beginning with, How did this happen...
...But Congress has...
...Nice woman, I think her name was Naomi...
...Right," said Reeker, "I was just getting to that...
...On Wednesday morning, naval officers arriving for work at the Pentagon read about it on the Drudge Report...
...To the tune of "Nobody Does It Better") No white male doesn't hate her, Ken Starr is such a pest No white male doesn't take a crack at you, Hill'ry you're the best Upstate you went listening, and in New York City You didn't hide from the Far Right...
...But there are also people there with destructive, un-American attitudes—people who would write a memo like this, and others who would let it out of the building...
...For those who missed it, here are a few of the better Bush lines: • "I ran into this woman coming off the elevator...
...There are serious people at the State Department...
...There were numerous variations on Simon's anti-egomania anthem, "You're So Vain...
...The rest of you should be glad you have a day job...
...Reeker repeated the now-official position that the memo had not been "cleared" by the "appropriate" authorities...
...Then this magazine's editor read the memo on Fox News...
...In other words, as long as Palestinians are dying, the United States has no right to complain about the murder of its own citizens by terrorists...
...Heck, $15,000 these days gets you a sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom...
...No one believes the memo reflects official U.S...
...When I was a couple of points down, they said my campaign was in crisis...
...Let's find out whodunnit...
...And Matt Philbin's: So much brains, These scandals are never about you...
...Not so fast...
...At the bottom of the document is a line stating that the State Department's counterterrorism staff (S/CT) "concurred with this...
...He never answered the question...
...There really is no place like New York, especially for baseball fans like me and Mrs...
...I actually have a lot of respect for the New York media, even the New York Times...
...Instead, Reeker launched into an eye-glazing account of bureaucratic protocol at the State Department...
...That, apparently, was the official view of the Department of State...
...All set now...
Vol. 6 • October 2000 • No. 7
