today

Eat The Press |November 29 : On Monday, ABC's The Blotter reported that the U.S. Embassy in Argentina had "strongly suggested" that twin First daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush cut their visit to the country short as a result of security considerations. That report was since refuted by the Embassy, which issued a statement of non-expulsion, saying the Embassy "welcomed" the visit. Interestingly, last night's Daily Show presented the story without the Embassy denial; note that the date they showed on the ABC quote was Nov. 28th but the Embassy denial came on the evening of Nov. 27th (and was dutifully appended to the Blotter post). This is the first time in ETP's awareness that a Daily Show piece of news has not been scrupulously correct.

IMO: An earlier post on this blog suggested that Moscow had implied that Barbara Bush might have been on a 'secret mission'. However the present suggestion may also be true, i.e. peculiar sex or even serious misbehaviour such as fraud etc. I have known of at least one case where supposedly secret and confidential material, in this case being carried by plane well before plane fares were reduced to the present phenomenally low levels, in actual fact was the private car of a senior member of the British armed forces, and I was reliably informed that he was simply taking his car home at UK Govt expense, 'secret missions' being a perk of the job. It happens all the time, pity the suffering Afghans and I daresay the idler members of the EU (probably not US, UK or Canada) out in Afghanistan spend their time, in between partygoing around Kandahar airport, working out how to steal EU and UK money by such criminal scams.