Stateside: All The Olds That’s Fit To Print

Questions are being asked. By folk at the NZ Embassy and at the US State Department, both of which have been crucial to my getting an overseas press credential, the open sesame to so much that goes on here in DC. “I’ve been looking online to see your report of [insert name of event they’ve seen me at], but there’s been nothing.” “Oh,” I say, not altogether untruthfully, “They don’t always publish what I write. And sometimes I’m just getting background for something else I’m writing.” Truth is, for much of the past six weeks, I’ve not been able to write a thing.

I have the best of intentions. I take notes. I write down the times on the audio where I might want to grab a quote. And then I rush off to something else that seems crucial to report, and do the same. And then I mull. Perhaps that’s the mistake. I work it all out in my head but when I sit down to type something, nothing looks right. In House and Senate committee hearings I watch with envy the reporters with their laptops balanced on their knees, the story half written even before they walk out the door.

So. This is a catch-up. Obviously, none of it’s news, so I’ll try to keep it short. And try not to be opinionated. Truth to tell, it’s the struggle for “objectivity” that keeps me from writing.

::Ian Axford Forum, NZ Embassy, September 7::

The Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships in Public Policy are “for outstanding mid-career professionals to research, travel and gain practical experience in public policy in New Zealand for six months.” Each year, the Embassy arranges for a few of the previous year’s Fellows to give a presentation, each responded to by a fellow Fellow, and then there’s a knees-up in the form of some NZ libations and a barbie.

The 2006 Fellows who presented this year were Susan Coppedge (responded to by Jennifer Gootman, 2003), Saskia Kim (Donald Schmid, 2001), and Linda J. Blumberg (Nick Johnson, 2005). The public policies the three presenters covered were people trafficking, consumer privacy protection, and private health insurance coverage, respectively. Blumberg noted that she’d have to work hard to keep the audience’s interest after the first two topics: sex and secrets.

Blumberg—who worked for the Clinton Administration when it was trying to push through healthcare reform—gave a data-heavy presentation on who has private health insurance and what it costs the taxpayer, saying that the NZ Ministry of Health “doesn’t capture data in a way that can make such a study meaningful” but that survey questions have now been modified so that she can “look at this in a cleaner way”. Such is the reverse thrust power of the Ian Axford Fellowship.

http://www.fulbright.org.nz/awards/am-ian-axford.html

::Ahmadi-Nejad visit, September 24::

My three means of covering this were C-SPAN radio’s broadcast of the phone-ins to Washington Journal early that morning; the National Press Club’s live webcast of the Iranian president’s appearance, via video, at their Newsmaker luncheon; and the C-SPAN webcast of his appearance at Columbia University.

[It turned out to be so long, that I’ve made it into Part 2, which you can read here if you’re interested: Stateside With Rosalea: All The Olds (Part 2) - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00202.htm]

::CENTCOM Deputy Director of Operations October 3::

Besides the regional specialists who alert the foreign press to events that might be of interest to readers back home, the State Department also has a Department of Defense specialist who arranges briefings exclusively for the foreign press corps. Brigadier General Holmes, who is based with CENTCOM at MacDill AFB in Florida, was in town to address a Georgetown University audience about asymmetric warfare, and held a briefing at the Foreign Press Center as well.

He spoke for only five minutes—hinting at subjects he hoped to be questioned on: IEDs, security, protecting our people--and then asked for questions. For the next 25 minutes or so he was asked about Iran, Blackwater, Japan’s supply of oil refueling capabilities, the pullout of coalition forces, the threatened pullout of coalition forces if Labor wins the Australian election, and back to flavour of the day, security contractors and their “cowboy culture”.

Finally—and probably to the exasperation of the rest of the press corps—I asked a question on a completely different topic. Holmes chairs the Effects Synchronization Committee, an interagency group that looks at the effects of economic, political, social, cultural, and diplomatic activities on the region CENTCOM is responsible for (which is pretty much the Middle East plus some African countries).

How does that work, I asked, thinking of its acronym ESC and its related abbreviations CTRL and—God forbid!—DEL. The Effects Synchronization Committee includes representatives from the State Department, the Justice Department, the FBI, Treasury, and the intelligence community, Holmes said. Together with CENTCOM and often working through agencies of their coalition partners—e.g. Interpol—they “address common goals” for the region in order to “lay a stable platform… so a nation can prosper.”

http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/93247.htm

::John C. Dorrance Lecture, Georgetown University, October 3::

The Center for Australia and New Zealand Studies at DC’s Georgetown University is one of only two such centers in the United States. Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service hosts the annual John C. Dorrance Lecture, which this year was given by the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs, Glyn T. Davies.

John C. Dorrance died in 1991, just after publication of his book The United States and the Pacific Islands, “a thorough, scrupulously objective survey of the main trends among the newly independent island states of the region and the recent policies directed toward them by the United States as well as by other major nations.”

http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/B4472.aspx

The late Ambassador’s widow, Mary Lou, was in the audience, and she asked if the State Department is still training specialists in this area. Davies replied that there is a Foreign Service Institute course that deals with the Pacific. He noted that under Secretaries of State Shultz and Powell the FSI had improved immensely, but that training is really still on-the-job. “I wish we had the resources of the military for training,” he added.

The U.S. State Department has declared 2007 the Year of the Pacific, and many of the issues Davies addressed in his lecture and in response to the many questions the audience had are covered in this submission he made to a House committee in March, 2007, the week before PM Helen Clark’s state visit to the United States:

http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2007/81777.htm

http://sfs.georgetown.edu/

::Fado Irish Pub, October 6::

Overcome with patriotic fervor, and dying for a pint of Guinness, I fork over $20 at the door to cover the pay-per-view charge the pub reckons it’s paying to show World Cup games on several large screens. I situate myself amidst perfectly nice looking folks who, at a crucial moment, turn out to know the words of La Marseillaise backwards, sideways, and—most terrifyingly of all—en Francais. Oops! Seems I’m running with the wrong crowd.

We stick it to them, though, don’t we? At least in the first half. But I knew it was all over once Mr Beardy Longhair came onto the field. At the sight of him, a huge cheer went up in the pub, and the AB’s fortunes went downhill fast. Actually, not so fast. It was a damned good game, well-played and well worth watching, especially with all those emotional French types around me.

In the restroom afterwards, an American woman tells me she couldn’t understand why her English companion wanted the French to win instead of the New Zealanders. He told her, “Think about it, dear. We don’t want to have to face the All Blacks in the semi-finals.”

Click for big version

Caption: Les enfants de la patrie sont glum. Vive les AB’s!

http://www.fadoirishpub.com/

Rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--Peace--

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