Feltman
Scoop
Confirmed,
Pascoe
Recalled,
State to UN,
Says ICP "Had
It 1st"
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 21,
updated --
Outside the UN
Department of
Political
Affairs on
Monday
evening, Inner
City Press
once again
asked outgoing
DPA chief
Lynn Pascoe
about his
replacement
from the US
State
Department,
Jeffrey
Feltman. "You
had it first,"
Pascoe said
with a
smile.
Previously
he
had declined
any comment.
On March 28,
Inner City
Press
exclusively
reported that
"[t]he
UN's top
political job
is slated to
be filled with
another
American,
current US
Assistant
Secretary of
State for Near
Eastern
Affairs
Jeffrey
Feltman."
For the seven
weeks since, a
range of
diplomats and
UN
officials have
asked Inner
City Press if
it was sure:
how could Ban
Ki-moon so
clearly (or
cravenly)
aligned UN
policy in the
Middle East
with that the
the US? But
this Ban's UN.
One
source
predicted that
more "shoes
will be thrown
at Ban
Ki-moon."
Monday evening
diplomats from
a UN Budget
committee
meeting
echoed that
surprise, some
adding that it
was
"disgusting"
that the
Reuters
newswire
"re-packaged
Inner City
Press' story"
without giving
any credit.
Inner City
Press wrote
about it
and sent an
e-mail to that
effect to one
of the three
journalists
bylined on the
Reuters story,
which also
listed two
editors,
without
response hours
later. This
is corporate
media, at
least as it
covers or does
not cover the
UN. (The
irony is that
other
corporate
media,
protecting
each other,
may well
credit
Reuters.)
In front of
DPA and the
Budget
Committee,
just as earlier
in the day in
front of the
General
Assembly
and in the NGO
Committee,
no other
media was
present. And
yet derivative
stories are
reported
without
credit.
This will be
addressed
going forward.
For now among
reactions, it
was recalled
the Feltman
met for the US
with Ban's
envoy to Iraq
Ad Melkert.
"Feltman IS
the face of US
Middle East
policy," an
attendee said.
Now he will
be, or become,
the UN.
Of
Pascoe we wish
to say this:
when he came
in some
pointed
somewhat
similarly to
his State
Department
background.
But he'd been
ambassador in
Indonesia, not
an area so
central to the
UN's
ostensible
attempts to
mediate like
the Middle
East.
Pascoe through
time convinced
many of his
critics that
he was
"not just a
tool of the
US," as one of
them recently
put
it. But
Feltman comes
with much more
baggage. Watch
this site.
Update
of 11:46 pm --
six hours
after it was
raised to one
of the three
named Reuters
reports, and
hours after
then submitted
as comment to
the Reuters
story, the
comment has
yet to be
"approved" -
see http://www.reuters.com/article/comments/idUSBRE84K14Q20120521
, 
