State Department's diplomats dip into blog-world

They may not have solved all the world’s problems, but no one can say the senior diplomats in the Bush administration’s State Department haven’t put serious effort into joining the Internet age.

Photos galore, personal observations--all on the record, from people more often identified as "senior administration officials traveling with the secretary."

In August, in the middle of an ominous standoff with Russia, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried took time out to punch out a 600-word defense of U.S. diplomacy on the Georgia crisis in Dipnote, the State Department’s blog.

Last Saturday, the State Department’s chief spokesman, Sean McCormack (looking very un-bloggy beside the secretary in the photo above) gave a blow-by-blow of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s slightly surreal encounter in Tripoli with Libyan leader  Moammar Kadafi, only minutes after it happened.

Key insight: “Brother leader” doesn’t receive visitors on plastic lawn chairs, as previously reported.

This week, the blog posted a stack of photos of Rice’s North Africa trip, just to give the State.gov website a bit of a Facebook feel.

-- Paul Richter

Photo: David Y. Lee / U.S. Department of State

Comments

[anonymous]

Wow. Bush says he has used the internets (note plural) and can do the google.
McCain doesn't know how to email. Hey these guys are pros! I guess they wouldn't know a grass root if it bit them in the ..... oh wait, it already has. They just don't know it.