Building support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package by sending consecutive emails to federal employees’ official government email inboxes and instructing them to forward the emails to their “friends, family and online networks” is not only unethical but possibly illegal.

Media Matters also complains that the story has no anonymous quotes from frustrated federal employees in order to prove the story. Which is a fair point. I’ll give them that. So here are two anonymous quotes from State Department employees that didn’t sign up for the White House emails but are still receiving political musings from Nancy-Ann DeParle and the White House:

Anonymous Quote #1:

“ I didn’t sign up for this. Why do I have to bother with political fights from work. This is inappropriate and distracting to REAL issues.”

Anonymous Quote #2:

“I have been receiving these emails at my state.gov address, unsolicited e-mails such as the one below on a near weekly basis.  Kinda threatening dontcha think? Budget problems if it doesn’t pass?”

Department of State employees receive hundreds of official government emails every day on pressing issues like the Israeli-Palestinian issue or the Iranian nuclear weapons issue. Should they have to worry about partisan political emails threatening budget complications if Obama’s bill isn’t passed?

DeParle’s language in one email flatly states that there will be budget problems for federal agencies if the Obama bill isn’t passed. DeParle uses scare tactics that are clearly meant as threats:

“No ifs, ands or buts about it — if we do nothing to reform our broken health care system, costs will continue to skyrocket and break the budgets of American families, small businesses and the Federal Government,” read the March 12th email from DeParle.

Since Media Matters is trying to dismiss the issue as “pure speculation”, here are 2 examples of the emails. Decide for yourself:

deparle-emails

Rice started off her tenure at the UN with a glamour spread in Vogue Magazine by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz showing her kicking back in an empty Security Council Chamber.  It was this silly piece that first signaled to the UN reporters and diplomats that Rice was in New York to have fun and participate in the events that Upper East Side diplomats do.  While Rice does commute from Washington, DC every week, she lives in the penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria when in New York.  She also has the largest Washington, DC office and staff of any U.S. Ambassador to the UN in history.  She regularly attends White House social functions appearing as the Disney character “Goofy” at this year’s White House Halloween Party and attended multiple Christmas Parties at The White House this holiday season.

While Rice, like all Democrat-appointed US Ambassadors to the UN, also serves in the President’s cabinet, she has nevertheless been absent at many crucial Security Council meetings in New York during some of the world body’s most turbulent times.  Rice was even missing from this week’s Security Council debate and vote to add new Peacekeepers to a beleaguered UN operation in Haiti.  According to several UN veteran reporters and some US Mission staff, Rice has been missing from crucial negotiations on Iran too.  They say that when Rice does attend UN negotiations, she is all too willing to avoid confrontation.  The Permanent Members of the Security Council – the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia and China – rely on American leadership to drive issues to a close and force votes.  While the Permanent Members historically complain publicly about being forced to vote or meet on certain issues, without one country driving issues to completion the UN Members will keep talking or find ways to continue fruitless discussions.  After spending 8 years inside the UN and watching the Security Council debate a plethora of issues, I can personally attest to the fact that an effective American Ambassador cannot worry about being the most popular person in the room.  Forcing an end to a UN debate and calling for the Security Council to vote on an issue is never popular.

Over the last year, Rice has avoided tough negotiations and public feuds at the UN and has subsequently produced very few UN resolutions on America’s priority issues.  While other foreign Ambassadors speak fondly of Rice and her ability to make nice at the UN, she has been a weak negotiator for the American people.  Many UN veterans have indicated that Rice’s lack of leadership on the Iranian issue in particular has forced the French Ambassador to pick up the slack in trying to forge a new Security Council resolution to increase sanctions.  The irony that the French are tougher than the Americans on the Iran issue has not been lost on career State Department officials.

During the Bush Administration, much to the dismay of many UN members, the United States delegation passed several sanctions resolutions on Iran for their continued uranium enrichment.  The Russians and Chinese, in particular, complained publicly about a vote forced upon them, but in the end they voted for the UN sanctions resolution.  Rice and her team have so far been unsuccessful in getting even one single sanctions resolution despite having given multiple deadlines to the Iranian Government.

Rice’s weak and sporadic attention to U.S. priority issues actually damages the UN’s credibility by sending the message that U.S. tax dollars can be spent without regard to effectiveness.  Americans have always demanded that the UN reform its bloated system and it has fallen to the American Ambassador to the UN to spearhead that reform.  Under Rice’s leadership, the U.S. delegation has been astonishingly quiet on UN budget and reform issues.  While Peacekeeping operations continue to be expanded without challenge and the UN Budget dramatically increased, Rice and her team have drawn few lines in the sand with the UN.  Not surprisingly, Rice has chosen to abandon a messy public fight with other countries looking to spend American taxpayers’ dollars.  The U.S. taxpayer pays 22% of the UN’s total budget and 26% of its Peacekeeping budget – more than $1 Billion every year.  While the Bush Administration had some success in starting a top to bottom review of every UN mandate and program, the Rice team has dropped the effort altogether.  On November 19, 2009, the U.S. Government’s General Accounting Office issued a report questioning how some of the $330 million the U.S. gave to the UN Office for Project Services’ was spent, including a citation of $200,000 to renovate a guest house.  So far, Rice and her team have done very little to follow up on this and other questionable budget issues.  Demanding UN reform won’t endear you to other Ambassadors, but the American people expect it.

Rice often says that she is different than her predecessors and chooses to socialize and engage her UN colleagues quietly.  But the irony is that engaging the world body, as John Bolton did, gives the American people the confidence that our Representatives at the UN are watching how the money is spent and how effective the programs are being implemented.  Fighting for quality UN international peacekeeping programs only strengthens the UN and allows it to do more.  Reforming the UN makes it more effective and ensuring that the UN spends our money wisely enables it and us to do more for suffering people around the world.  One sure way to weaken the UN is to marginalize it, placate it and not engage it as Rice has done this past year.

Perhaps the best example of how Susan Rice views her responsibilities at the UN this year is seen in her revamp of the Bush era website for her office.  While previous U.S. Ambassadors to the UN have prominently displayed the American flag on their website and proudly displayed the site in red, white and blue coloring, Rice has changed the site to UN Blue, added a large UN logo and only later added a small American flag after several reporters inquired about the dramatic change and missing American stars and stripes.  Rice has gambled this past year that keeping America unengaged at the UN is the best way to be the most popular Ambassador.  Unfortunately, though well-liked during her sporadic visits to the UN, Rice has so far been unable to produce any meaningful progress on the world’s most troubling issues.

But after 10 days of tropical silence, this week there is a sudden flurry of security reviews, media statements, ass-covering and more misstatements coming out of Washington from the Obama Administration.  But we still don’t know why the State Department didn’t revoke the visa of a man they knew had ties to al-qaeda.

Even the normally workaholic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was enjoying a silent 10 nights on the matter.  Taking her time to get the facts and pack up the Christmas decorations, Hillary finally came out looking like she had just landed in Yugoslavia under sniper fire.

Secretary Clinton joined Janet Napolitano in glossing over the facts surrounding the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253.  Not to be outdone that all went well with her agency while the boss was on vacation, Secretary Clinton said that the State Department “fully complied with the requirements set forth in the interagency process” about sharing threat information.

What?

Fully complied?  The State Department not only failed to share the threat information with a variety of agencies but those who had the information didn’t even act upon it themselves.  In fact, Several State Department officials in Nigeria and Washington, DC didn’t even do the basic tasks expected of public servants working to protect Americans.

Not only did the State Department not comply with all the requirements Secretary Clinton had said, but the State Department also violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 1735 by not providing the new information they received on an al-qaeda suspect to the UN.  We know that State Department officials in Nigeria and Washington had the information because someone wrote a top secret cable dated November 20, 2009 explaining that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had ties to al-qaeda.  This means that the State Department had 35 days to revoke Adbulmutallab’s visa and share the information with the UN – it failed to do either.

Had the State Department shared the cable with other U.S. agencies or given the information to the UN, as required under the Chapter 7 Resolution, all Nations would have been obligated to deny entry and freeze the assets of anyone officially on the UN’s Terrorist List.

The smoking gun is the November 20 State Department cable that wasn’t acted upon.  No one shared it with the Embassy visa section, other U.S. agencies or the UN.  How could a top secret cable be written but not acted upon by the same Embassy that wrote it?  Questions remain as to who approved the cable, where was it sent and why wasn’t a visa revoked because of the cable?

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin Sanders and Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson need to answer some questions about what they did with the November 20, 2009 top secret cable containing crucial national security information.  Did they ignore the fact that their Embassy identified an al-qaeda operative?  Did they not check to see if a visa was already granted to this al-qaeda operative?  Who all approved the visa?  Who read the cable?  At the very minimum, Ambassador Robin Sanders needs to tell the American people why she didn’t revoke the visa of Abdulmutallab after her team originally approved it.

What we’ve learned since Janet Napolitano and Hillary Clinton thought everything went as bureaucratically expected on Christmas Day is that President Obama takes surf board accidents on his vacation very seriously but is willing to delegate the safety of the American public to subordinates.