State For Hillary?

Apropos of my piece on the State Department, I ventured over to one of my guilty pleasures: State’s super-awesome DipNote blog. Alas, Foggy Bottom isn’t exactly poring over my stuff, but it does appear to be invested in the presidential contest. The current lead post is about nuclear terrorism, and starts off asking what "Senator Hillary Clinton, President George W. Bush and the Pope have in common." The answer is that all three "are very concerned" about the threat of nuclear terrorism.

 So far so good. But take a look at the graf that follows:

Last week, at the Democratic primary debate at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, the very first question posed by moderator Charles Gibson was about the threat of nuclear terrorism. Confronted with a hypothetical scenario of a nuclear-equipped al-Qaeda, Senator Clinton said, “I think it’s important… because obviously that’s the most direct threat to the United States.” She then went on to describe five steps she would take in that scenario.

And then we’re out. No mention of what any other Dem candidates had to say about nuclear terrorism at the debate. For the record, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson all took on the question, and at considerable length—so much so that it makes blockquoting selective, so just click the link for the transcript if you think I’m pulling a fast one or being unfair to the post’s author, Tara Foley. The omission is, shall we say, rather conspicuous.

It’s refreshing that State is willing to experiment with blogging. The Pentagon has a blogger outreach program in its press shop, but it certainly doesn’t have its own blog. But State is still an apolitical part of the machinery of government. It shouldn’t be wading into a presidential election.