Another top Rice aide quits (Barry Lowenkron)

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

Another top Rice aide quits Mon Apr 30, 6:05 PM ET



WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top human rights adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced his resignation Monday, the latest in a string of senior State Department officials to quit as the administration of President George W. Bush winds to a close.

Barry Lowenkron, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, will leave within weeks to become a vice president with the MacArthur Foundation, a private grant-making enterprise, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The departure of Lowenkron, who notably oversaw the State Department's annual human rights report, was announced just three days after the surprise resignation of one of Rice's two deputies, foreign aid director Randall Tobias.

Tobias quit on Friday after being named in the media as a client of a Washington DC call-girl ring.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070430/pl_afp/usdiplomacyrice_070430220558

[saltpoint]

1. Pretty soon poor Condi's going to have to make her own coffee.

[Richard Steele]

2. Condi had a "Human Rights Advisor"? Who knew?

Hell, if he had STARTED doing his job, that might be "news".

He didn't "quit", he just stopped getting paid for something
he wasn't doing anyway.

DIFFERENT.

[truthisfreedom]

3. Sucks to be in this administration.

Totally. bush SUCKS.

[Eurobabe]

4. So is he connected to the scandal?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. WHICH scandal?

:evilgrin:

[Arkansas Granny]

9. It's getting hard to keep them all straight, huh.

:eyes:

[saltpoint]

5. And you know, this couldn't have come at a worse time. Condi was

just getting the State Department softball team up to speed, and now all these resignations.

If it ain't one thing, it's another.

[rodeodance]

6. no time to appear at Waxman hearing either---but says she might drop

him a note.

[saltpoint]

22. That's right. And as much as Condi just loves Congressman Waxman,

it's just tough to find the time to sit down and have that long-overdue chat.

________
Hi, rodeodance. Interesting times we live in when the Secretary of State is AWOL from her principal duty.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. Are these resignations happening at a higher rate than usual or

are we just so focused on "irregularities" right now that we notice every one?

[Na Gael]

10. Oxymoronic

that Condoleeza Rice has anything called, "Democracy," or, "Human Rights" in any department under her purview.

[C_U_L8R]

11. That giant sucking sound you hear

are republican rats fleeing the flopping Bush administration

[Roland99]

12. Who the hell is left in the State Dept. now anyway???

[maddezmom]

15. Condi and her spokesman

:shrug:

[Ian David]

13. He's resigned to spend more time waterboarding his family. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

14. *Splash!*

"Rat overboard!"

[gratuitous]

16. The Bush administration is winding to a close?

By the looks of my calendar, they've still got another 20 months in office. At 100 military dead, as happened in April, that's another 2,000 grieving families by my count. Another 2,000 lives ended (to say nothing of the tens or even hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) in service to George W. Bush's outsized and unwarranted ego. It can't wind to a close soon enough to suit me.

[woodsprite]

17. Hmmm. If she can't make the hearings, maybe Waxman can

start issuing subpeonas to the people jumping her ship.

[peacetalksforall]

18. Through transparency we've learned that trust, loyaly, and a commitment

to screw the country is what George and Dick look for in staff. Some of them are not quite as loyal as believed. Anyone leaving now is brave. It can always be said that they left before being exposed by the Madame. The big question is - have Dick and George run out of loyal and/or innocent candidates? Or is this the Republican way of creating a smaller government.

The two of them have so many problems - perhaps we may even start feeling sorry for them. sarc.

[Divernan]

19. Shame on the MacArthur Foundation for hiring a Bush/torture enabler.

Anyone who remotely believes in human rights would not have worked so closely with Rice in Bush's State Department. However the MacArthur Foundation is extremely wealthy - and we know that the Bushies always follow the money.

Here's Wikipedia's account of the foundation:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a major private grant-making foundation based in Chicago that has awarded more than US$3 billion since its inception in 1978. It is now one of the ten largest private philanthropies in the U.S. with an endowment of more than $6 billion. The foundation awards approximately $225 million annually in grants and low-interest loans.

Its four major program areas are Global Security and Sustainability, Human and Community Development, General grant-making, and the MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as "genius grants." Topics of interest to the Foundation include international peace and security, conservation and sustainable development, population control, reproductive health, human rights, community development, affordable housing, and educational, juvenile justice, and mental health reform, public interest media, including public radio and independent documentary film. The Foundation also gives grants to arts and cultural institutions in the Chicago area.

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards five-year, unrestricted fellowships, "to individuals across all ages and fields (but ONLY to US citizens) who show exceptional merit and promise of continued creative work." The amount of the award is currently $500,000, which is paid over five years, with no strings attached.

The Foundation's President is Jonathan F. Fanton, formerly President of the New School for Social Research. There are also overseas offices in Mexico, India, Nigeria, and Russia.

[WhiteTara]

23. sounds like the looting of the foundation

has begun :(

[Marie26]

20. Rats/sinking ship. nt

[tabasco]

21. Rats leaving a sinking ship. They have soaked the Treasury for all it's worth.

Now they must abandon the criminal Bush cabal before it's too late.

I hope the long arm of the law reaches these crooks when the People retake our government.

I wonder if Condi was getting "massages" too.