A24
EZ SU
KLMNO THE FED PAGE Bam! Pow! Ooooff! Crash! Splatt! . . . Leak!
couldresult fromsuchcandid portrayals of their leaders’ views.”
A Cheney travel advisory AnAgenceFrance-Pressewire
AL KAMEN In the Loop
T
he biggest losers inthe WikiLeaksdebacle? Americandiplomacy in
general andSecretary of State HillaryClintoninparticular— eventhougha chunk of the controversial cable trafficwas fromtheGeorgeW.Bushdays. The biggestwinner?Batman
andsidekickRobin,who seemto have edgedoutYogiBear and BooBooas thepreferred diplomaticdescriptionof less- than-equalpartners. One 2008 cable, amongmany
that frostedKGBthug-turned- RussianPresidentVladimir Putin,describedhimas an“alpha dog”who really ranthe country andcastPrimeMinisterDmitry Medvedev as the less assertive “RobintoPutin’sBatman.” Another 2008 cable,
appropriately titled“MoreFrom theRumorMill,” talks about the “reflexively loyal”Medvedev and notes thatPutin“has beenmaster of thepolitical surprise over the past year andconsistently bamboozledthe chattering class andpundits as tohis long-term intentions.” OurCanadiancousinswere
upset by a cable reporting that they “always carry a chipontheir shoulder” because they are “condemnedto alwaysplay ‘Robin’ to theU.S. ‘Batman.’ ” But there are a lot of countries
andleaders aroundtheworld playing these
roles.French PresidentNicolasSarkozy is RobintoGermany’sBatgirl,
AngelaMerkel.Bolivia’sEvo Morales isRobintoVenezuelan PresidentHugoChavez.Every leader inSoutheastAsia isRobin toChina’sHuJintao. Andthere’s got to be a strong
supporting cast.Let’s see, former BritishprimeministerGordon Brownisperfect forAlfred, the loyal
butler.The evil Joker, everyone’s favorite villain, is naturallyMahmoud
PHOTOS BY REUTERS (MEDVEDEV/PUTIN AND BRUNI-SARKOZY), ASSOCIATED PRESS (ADAM WEST/BURT WARD AND AHMADINEJAD), GETTY IMAGES (CESAR ROMERO AS THE JOKER), FILE (JULIE NEWMAR AS CATWOMAN)
If, as the leaked cable tells us,Medvedev, left, is to Putin as Robin is to Batman, who are the other denizens of theGotham City that is the geopolitical world? Ahmadinejad makes a fine Joker, for starters, and you could do worse than Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for Catwoman.
out ofLagos,Nigeria, reports that anti-corruptionauthorities there planto file charges againstDick Cheney over a bribery scandal involvingHalliburton, the companyCheneyusedtohead. Now, beforeCheney-bashers
get too excited, it shouldbenoted that these allegationshave been kicking aroundfor some time. In addition,we’renowheadedinto theNigerianelectionseason— voting is set forApril 9. Finally, it’snot as if the former
vicepresident, suffering from some seriousheartproblems,was planning to take the family ona cruiseuptheNigerDelta anytime
soon.The odds ofhis showingup inAfrica—exceptmaybe for a hunting trip—are zero. TheAFPstory saidcharges
wouldbe filedagainstCheney alongwithformer andcurrent Halliburtonofficials inan investigationof bribery allegations involving the constructionof a liquefied- natural-gasplant.
The secretarial pool Goodnews for our oldbuddy
Ahmadinejad.Catwomancould have beenCondoleezzaRice, but she’smadehistory onthe cover of Der Spiegel asXena, thewarrior princess, so Sarkozy spouseCarla Bruni-Sarkozy
couldwork.And thePenguin?MaybeMoammar
Gaddafi.The buxomUkrainian blondewho’shis “nurse” could double as ahenchwoman.
Browse at your own risk Meanwhile, eventhoughmost
everyone onEarthhas seenthese documents, federal agencies are warning employees that they are still secret andcannot be viewed ongovernment computers. TheCommerceDepartment’s
Monday e-mail “Guidance regardingWikiLeaks” toldall employees andcontractors that “recent reports indicate that a
number of government documents”werepostedby JulianAssange’s operationand thedocuments “may ormaynot contain. . . classified information.” (Sure seems as thoughtheydo.) This “informationisNOT
authorizedfordownloading, viewing,printing,processing, copying or transmitting” onyour government “computers, laptops, blackberries or other communicationsdevices,” the e-mail says.Youmight create a “potential security incident.” “Therehas beena rumor that
the informationisno longer classified”maybe because it’s gone viral, bigger thanthe Beatles. “This isNOTtrue,” the CommerceComputer Incident ResponseTeam(DOC-CIRT) says,
citing adictate to that effect from PresidentObamaa year ago— ExecutiveOrder 13526. “Unauthorizeddisclosure” doesn’tmeanadocument is legallydeclassified. Sodon’tdownloador evenread
any of the stuff onyour computer. “Accessing theWikiLeaks documentswill leadto sanitizationof yourPCto remove anypotentially classified informationfromthe systemand result inpossibledata loss,” the e-mailwarns. (Listen, youwillnot like itwhenthey take the giant Brillopadto yourharddrive.) TheEducationDepartment,
citing the same executive order, saidTuesday inane-mail thatno one fromthe agency shouldlook at thedocuments ontheir government computers. “To
ensure this, theWikiLeaks site is being blockedby the Department,” the e-mail said. Looking at classified
informationonyourunclassified computer “is considereda ‘spillage,’ ” themessage said, whichis a “computer security event thatmust beproperly remediated.” If you’ve already lookedat thedocuments, call the ITguys and“theywillworkwith youto remediate yourdevice.” Nothing like teamwork. Meanwhile, our colleagues
KeithRichburg inBeijing and LeilaFadel inBaghdadwrite that “authoritariangovernments and tightly controlledmedia inChina andacross theArabMiddleEast have suppressedvirtually all mentionof thedocuments, avoiding thepublic backlashthat
Alberto“Fredo”Gonzales. Seems 23 formerBushCabinet members areworking to raise money tohelphimpay legal bills arising fromthe investigation intohis role inthe allegedly politicallymotivatedfiring of someU.S. attorneys. The 23 formerCabinetheads
—includingRice,Donald Rumsfeld,HankPaulsonand MichaelChertoff—saidinan e-mail, obtainedbyPolitico, that the JusticeDepartmenthad concludedits investigation “concludingno chargeswere justified.” SoGonzaleshas “been vindicatedanddeserves our help,” they said. The groupis looking for gifts
upto$5,000 for theAlberto GonzalesLegalExpenseTrust. The signatories also include
former secretaries TomRidge, JohnSnowandTommy Thompsonbutnot former attorney general JohnAshcroft or secretary of stateColinPowell.
kamena@washpost.com
Product complaint database to be accessible to public
Consumer agency votes 3-2, along party lines, for new, open system
BY ANDREW ZAJAC Beginning in March, consum-
ers will for the first time be able to check a government database that will compile safety com- plaints about a wide array of products such as toys and electri- cal appliances. The public database, approved
last week by the Consumer Prod- uct Safety Commission, is almost unprecedented for a government agency. Companies will be given a
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The Federal Worker Pressure on the postmaster general
About to take charge of an organization that lost $8.5 billion in the fiscal year 2010, Patrick Donahoe says said that cutting delivery to five days a week is “crucial” to saving USPS. Federal Diary, B3
GSA to migrate e-mail
The General Services Administration will be the first federal agency to move to a cloud-based system amid the government’s push to adopt Web-based computing. B3
brief period to block complaints that are untrue or involve confi- dential information, but the da- tabase appears destined to be- come amassive equivalent of the Internet bulletin boards on which consumers can post per- sonal safety reviews of products. That’s a marked change from
the previous system, in which consumers could file complaints with the commission but the alleged problem would not be disclosed officially unless the agency ordered a recall. The vote was 3 to 2, along
party lines, with Democratic members voting to establish the database at
SaferProducts.gov, an existing commissionWeb site. The database will allow the
commission to “share more in- formation about dangerous products than we have been allowed to in years past — a change that we believe will lead
to safer products and, therefore, safer consumers,” the Democrat- ic commissioners, Thomas Moore, Robert Adler and Chair- man Inez Tenenbaum, said in a joint statement. The commission’s two Repub-
lican members, Anne Northup and Nancy Nord, and other crit- ics said the system would be open to abuse, including nega- tive posts by competitors. They said the decision expand-
ed the categories of people who can lodge a complaint beyond what Congress had intended in a 2008 law authorizing a public complaint database. “As a result, the database with
be filled with bogus reports in- spired by political or financial motives rather than safety,” Ro- sario Palmieri of the National Association of Manufacturers said in a blog post. But froma consumer perspec-
tive, “I can only see benefits,” said Prashant Malaviya, a mar- keting professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “Any little effort to increase the awareness of con- sumers about defective products is going to help.” About two- thirds of the U.S. population has Internet access, and online re- search of products has become commonplace, making the data- base a potentially powerful tool for consumers and amegaphone for important announcements such as recalls,Malaviya said. Starting March 11, consumers
can contact the commission by way of an online complaint form or a telephone hotline to report complaints about products with- in its purview, basically every-
thing except cars, tires, food, tobacco, drugs and cosmetics. Companies that register with
the commission will be given access to a Web portal in which they can view complaints about their products and will have 10 days to object if the information is false or involves confidential business information. The decision aboutwhether to
honor the objection rests with the commission. A similar Web site for cars is
operated by the Transportation Department at
Safercar.gov. The commission’s database
will not include complaints cur- rently on file. In the case of older com-
plaints, therewould be noway to ensure fair comment by product makers, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said. Also, the agency lacks the manpower to convert the information into a consumer-usable format, he said. In what could yet develop into
an obstacle for the new system, a Republican congressman who is in line to become the chairman of the committee that spawned the database legislation said the rules for the database were tilted against business. “Several provisions of the
staff-proposed final rule run con- trary to the intent of Congress and the clear and unambiguous language of the act,” Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.) said in a letter to Tenenbaum. With the House soon to be in
Republican hands, Barton is a contender to head the Energy and Commerce Committee. — Chicago Tribune
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2010
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