Last year, the DC District Court Judge Richard J. Leon rejected FSO Elizabeth Colton's ADEA claims against Secretary of State Clinton and upheld the Foreign Service Act’s mandatory retirement provision.
The Court's decision included the following which bears repeating here:
"Colton's allegation that the Secretary of State's refusal to grant her an extension pursuant to § 4052(b) was a discriminatory act is unavailing. Although the mandatory retirement provision grants the Secretary the discretion to retain a person for up to five years past the mandatory retirement age if in the "public interest," there is no requirement that the Secretary do so.."
Dr. Colton had rotated out of Karachi in the middle of the district's great floods and was granted a one-year extension for an assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The Legal Times citing court records reported that on Aug. 4, the State Department told Colton via e-mail that her mandatory retirement had been postponed until Sept. 2011 and that she had been approved to serve as the information officer for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The local press reported her arrival in Egypt on September 2010 here.
Dr. Colton was asked to jumped out of the water in Pakistan and was sent to Egypt where she jumped into the fire. Need we mention that she was at post before, during, and after the Egyptian Revolution like all other core embassy employees younger than her? We know because we continue receiving the embassy press updates all that time.
That extension should run out just about now. But I understand that the case has now gone to the Court of Appeals where Dr. Colton was granted until November 21, 2011, to file her appellant’s brief.
When she gets thrown out the airlock at 66 when that one-year extension is done, I supposed it just shows that there is no such thing as in the "public interest" when it comes to midlevel public diplomacy professionals even with the State Department's persistent staffing gaps in that cone, and despite the turmoil in the large swath of the Middle East.
As if to put emphasis on the notion of "public interest," (or lack thereof), which of course, the Director General of the Foreign Service and the State Department gets to interpret, just when and how that is at play -- we are happy to report that David Ensor, formerly of CNN and US Embassy Kabul and now of Voice of America has been replaced by former CNN/ABC correspondent Eileen O'Connor.
Yep, for the same position at the US Embassy in Kabul as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy. See? Routine State Department job titles do not even cut the cake there.
Via the Potomac Flacks: "First reported in Politico’s “Playbook”, Eileen O’Connor has been named the new Communications Director and Director of Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, succeeding David Ensor. O’Connor is currently Counsel in the law firm McDermott, Will and Emery. She is a former CNN and ABC foreign correspondent, who over a 24-year career in journalism was based in London, Moscow, Tokyo and in Washington, DC."
Over a decade ago when the State Department's own State Magazine picked Dr. Colton as an interesting specimen among FSO newbies, the magazine writes:
Ms. Colton also worked as a journalist with firsthand experience abroad. She reported for Asia Week, a Reuters magazine, and was a London-based television producer for both NBC and ABC covering the Middle East and North Africa. In 1981, she won an Emmy for two ABC Nightly News pieces on Libya. Later she established Newsweek's Middle East bureau in Cairo. The Waterford, Va., resident's coverage of the Persian Gulf War prompted National Public Radio to offer her a job as its State Department correspondent.Read more about her in Colton v. Clinton: Expeditionary Diplomat Booted Off Career Ladder, Too Old
Remember that group of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to a journalist? You guessed it.
They gave up to NBC radio correspondent Liz Colton.
Any how -- we are supposed to understand that there is no "public interest" in the extension of this career diplomat's tenure past the mandatory retirement age, no matter how excellent her service in the field of public diplomacy because she is too old? Like I said before but let me say it again -- that super sucks!
No matter that she is serving in one of the top deficit cones in the Foreign Service? Ditto.
No matter that she is serving in the midlevel ranks where there occur the most staffing gaps? Ditto.
Should we, therefore, conclude that while there is no/no "public interest" for the State Department to extend its "oldies but goldies" employees who clearly have the chops, the hiring of sorta big name journalists for its big time public affairs shop in the war zone is/is in the country's "public interest?"
Like there isn't anyone in all of the State Department's career corps qualified to run the US Embassy Kabul's press shop? What have they done to all the qualified career professionals in public affairs, throw them all out the airlock because they've turn 65?
I'm curious just how much taxpayer money goes to this kind of "public interest."
And who, pray tell are we going to see in Kabul next, Wolf Blitzer? Presumably, Ms. O'Connor will have a one-year tour at the US Embassy Kabul. So for 2012-2013, can we please, please vote who we should have there next?
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