Our State Department in Action

During my overseas stints with DEA, I learned that even under the best of administrations, our State Department is nothing to write home about. They are in a different universe, overloaded with Ivy League trained elitists who look down their noses at others-like DEA. I still vividly remember an issue from State's monthly journal featuring a cartoon with two DEA agents dressed in cowboy hats and boots and holding beer cans, conversing with two diplomats at a cocktail party. In the cartoon, one of the DEA agents says. Yes. We work for the Drug Enforcement Administration.  How'd you guess?"

So I could not resist cross-posting this article from Fox News describing a missive from State's Diversity Officer, John Robinson, in which he lectures readers on using terms such as, "holding the fort".

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/state-department-hold-down-fort-other-common-phrases-could-be-offensive/

Subsequent to the aforementioned cartoon, the DEA representative in India wrote a letter to the State journal, which told them that "diplomacy starts at home." To their credit, the journal admitted their error and apologized.

At least they said nothing about "holding the fort".