Oops -- about that junket to Mexico: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cancels

As Countdown to Crawford reported the other day, a group of top officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all political appointees named by George W. Bush, were planning to take an all-expenses-paid junket to Mexico.

On the schedule: confer with Mexican counterparts who will be working in the future with their successors in the Obama or McCain administration. Oh, yeah, and tour the famous Mayan ruins, marvel at the Lacandon rain forest and maybe even take in the Michoacan butterfly reserve with its profusion of monarch butterflies, like the one above, who migrate every year from Canada.

Not so fast. The Washington Post's Al Kamen, who broke the story earlier this week, reports that agency head Dale Hall "decided to postpone the meeting with Mexico until another time." In an e-mail to his staff, Hall explained that he postponed the trip, scheduled for the week of Nov. 17, on learning that not all the top officials would be able to go then.

Apparently they are needed for meetings here, to brief the incoming administration during the transition.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Luis Acosta / AFP/Getty Images