Obama Ignores Faleomavaega

Prior to President Obama's recent trip to Chile, Faleomavaega made a fervent public plea for him to put Rapa Nui on his agenda with the Chilean president.  Joined by lame duck Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who will retire at the 2012 election apparently without his Hawaiian Sovereignty bill (Akaka bill) enacted, Faleomavaega wrote an opinion piece for the Honolulu Star Advertiser that called on the U.S. to take the lead in protecting human rights on Chile's island province in the Pacific. 

As has been the case in virtually ever cause he has ever undertaken in Congress, his pleas went unheard, as Obama declined to raise the issue in Santiago.  Perhaps Faleomavaega suspected that would be the case but did not worry about taking another blow to his prestige, knowing his sister-in-law, an editor at his home town daily paper, Samoa News, would bury the story and preserve his ability to fool his consituents.  It may have been a pretext for him going to Rapa Nui himself, as we predicted he would.

Anyone who thought Faleomavaega's travel wings would be clipped in this Congress, now that he has been stripped of his subcommittee chairman, has been sadly mistaken.  The first quarter of 2012 has just come to a close and already he has been on a congressional junket to Australia and New Zealand,  stopping in Pago Pago each way just long enough to get fuel and give the people his middle finger and Rapa Nui and has announced he will be going to Korea.  Even with Republicans in charge and tight congressional budgets, he has found the money to keep on traveling.

What makes this visit to Rapa Nui so absurd is that he has absolutely no power or authority to do anything about the situation.  What makes it sad is that while he was in Rapa Nui, the new president of SgtarKist was making his first visit to American Samoa.  This was precisely the time Faleomavaega needed to be home to sit in on the  meeting between the new head of StarKist and the governor to plot a course to keep the cannery in the territory.

And of course, his fans just keep cheering him on.  Atta boy, Eni.  We have just one plea to Eni: any issue you really care about, please keep it to yourself.  Once you get involved, it ia guaranteed you will be on the losing side.

Business as Usual for Faleomavaega while American Samoa Sinks

If proof ever were needed that Samoa News, the territory's only independent daily news source, has not a clue what is going on around it, the paper's recent coverage of Faleomavaega's latest travel provided it.  While the Governor was in Washington fighting a last ditch effort to get federal assistance for the territory's tanking economy--with unemployment now over 20%, Samoa News was headlining Faleomavaega's "speaking out" about the need for Pacific Island countries to be included in trade talks between Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.

Was he doing so from his office in Washington, between meetings and appointments with the governor and federal policymakers?   No.  Eni was on his latest and one of his most inappropriate trips abroad: for a conference in New Zealand focused on U.S.-New Zealand commercial relations and a quick dash to Australia to discuss intellectual property rights.  Nowhere in the paper, at which his sister-in-law is an editor, can a question be found about why it was necessary for him to be on this trip while his governor was in Washington trying to save the territory in the face of sharp reductions in federal spending.

Adding further insult to injury, the nine-member congressional delegation of which he was a part, stopped in American Samoa to refuel in both directions, pausing only long enough for a quick ride into town on the return leg of the trip.   Not for lack of trying, the Governor no doubt will come home empty-handed.  Eni was back in Washington in time to take his seat last week at a House oversight hearing on territorial issues but his major contribution was to rebut the Governor's contention that the rise in the minimum wage was the major factor in the territory's economic crisis.

One wonders if they even met at all. 

Faleomavaega already has announced he will be traveling to South Korea.

Governor: Faleomavaega is a Rogue Delegate

Open warfare once again has broken out between Governor Togiola and Delegate Faleomavaega, but this time with a vengeance not seen in the past.  Why?  According to a Radio New Zealand report, it is widely believed that Togiola will make a bid for Faleomavaega's seat in Congress next year.  Togiola, who is served his second elected term after completing the unexpired term of his late predecessor, is barred by law from seeking re-election.

Sensing the potential competition from the powerful governor, the second longest serving chief executive in the territory's history, Faleomavaega last week fired a shot across Togiola's bow when the governor asked the Fono for a tax increase to cover the government's current deficit.  For his part, arguing against the tax hike, Faleomavaega pointed out that the federal government has sent down nearly a billion dollars since 2005, so the government should not be broke.

Now Togiola in a letter to the Fono leadership that played as a page one story in Samoa News has called Faleomavaega a "rogue delegate in Congress" in whom the ASG executive branch has "lost confidence."

In his letter Togiola said Faleomavaega stated his "views on our use of federal funds that publicly disgraces the territory, and requires a considered and definitive response."  Togiola says that Faleomavaega's suggestion that federal funds could be used to cover the government's shortfall in local revenues is the "kind of public demagoguery (that) is a witless call for corruption."  He went on to say "It is the nightmare of every inspector general in federal departments and federal agencies as well as the Department of Interior, who are charged with safeguarding federal funds for only authorized use."

To have used federal funds to cover a shortfall of local revenues, the "publicly delivered message" of the Congressman "is not only illegal, but with the intent he espouses, this becomes the promotion of criminal acts," the governor points out, adding that local and federal grants are operated separately and federal funded operations are "in good order."

According to the governor, the Congressman's "call for corruption" in the use of federal funds to offset shortfall in local revenues "is such an embarrassment to the territory."  He also said "I know that no other government of a U.S. territory that has had to put up with a constantly attacking and overreaching Congressional Delegate, as we do in American Samoa."

The next move is up to Faleomavaega.  The delegate announced that despite American Samoa's budgetary crisis, he is returning to the Foreign Affairs Committee and already is planning a fact-finding trip to South Korea.  Since he has been in and out of Seoul over the years as if it were Chicago, it is hard to believe he can find any new facts, but that's another story.  In the meantime, it does not appear his call for the Fono not to enact new taxes has fallen on deaf ears, as the governor's bill is moving apace through both houses.


What the governor left unsaid in his letter is that the shortfall in revenues was iteself caused by Faleomavaega's failure to stop the minimum wage increase in 2007 that drove out one cannery and forced the other one to downsize significantly.   A lot of wages on which revenues would have been collected have been permanently lost.

TRAVEL CURBS WON’T STOP FALEOMAVAEGA

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a tightening of the rules to curb congressional travel abuse as Democrats head into what looks to be a bad year for majority incumbents, but the new restrictions are unlikely to slow the pace of Faleomavaega, whose time on airplanes borders on insanity.

Among other reforms Pelosi has announced http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/new-rules-for-congressional-travel/, House Members now will be required to travel economy class on flights less than 14 hours. It is unclear from news accounts if the time threshold applies to total time between departure and arrival cities or time on each segment. In the former case, Eni is well covered because most of his Asian destinations are longer than 14 hours away total travel time.

If the restriction is per segment, Eni easily can get around that by flying non-stop to places like Hong Kong or Bangkok in business class then travel economy from one of those hub cities to his final destination. Rest assured, this restriction will not affect his travel one bit.

The speaker also is requiring more documentation for the rationale of committee-arranged trips, known universally as CODELs--short for Congressional delegation. It is not clear if this documentation will be available for public scrutiny but the media in American Samoa have shown little interest in the whereabouts or the whys of the delegate’s travel and there has been no public clamor for the information. Frequently he announces that he is “on assignment” in Asia without ever revealing who is making these assignments, so perhaps this new documentation will shed light on that. Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is an editor, dutifully prints his press releases and the public believes he is on some sort of "assignment."

The new rules also reminded lawmakers that government travel per diem is to be spent for official business and that excess money must be returned. The rules prohibit lawmakers from taking aides from their personal offices along or from putting aides temporarily on the committee payroll to get around the restriction but it would be difficult to determine if Eni heretofore has abused the system in these regards. Faleomavaega routinely apportions some of his staff salaries between his personal office and the Foreign Affairs Committee, but it is not clear whether this is to get around travel restrictions or just to hide the true salaries of some of his staff.

Pelosi also made clear that the costly use of military aircraft would be limited and that to qualify for one of the scarce jets, lawmakers must be traveling on a bipartisan basis and have enough colleagues traveling to justify a government plane. Despite his seniority and position, Eni has not been very successful in obtaining the use of military aircraft, so this new rule should not pose any difficulties for him.

The only rule change that might have made a difference is if Pelosi had required any sort of certification of a member’s health. For years Faleomavaega has had serious health problems and periodically has had to have been hospitalized. In addition to obesity, he has had heart problems, circulatory problems, halitosis and foot problems, including suffering from gout. It has been rumored that on his last trip to American Samoa for Flag Day last month he was so ill he had to be hospitalized and missed the ceremonies.

He reportedly was wheeled to the plane in a wheel chair for the return trip to Washington, was again hospitalized in Honolulu and finally again in Washington, which may have been the reason why he was absent in a photograph of all the other territorial delegates standing behind President Obama when he signed an Executive Order re-establishing an Interagency Group on Insular Affairs.

Perhaps it is illness that also has led to his silence so far on the 40% reduction of work force StarKist announced Friday for its American Samoa cannery. Faleomavaega recently made a point of announcing he had flown to Seoul to meet with the cannery owners and was given assurances that the company did not intend to close its facility in the territory. Perhaps not at the moment, but the handwriting is on the wall.

Sick or not, you can expect that just as soon as he is able to do so, Faleomavaega will be back on another plane to Seoul to hold further meetings with StarKist. The congressional Memorial Day recess is only two weeks away. Count on the travel. In fact, expect there to be a travel frenzy the rest of this year because it increasingly looks like Republicans will be taking control of Congress in November elections.

Republican control will not slow the pace of Faleomavaega’s travel but it will restrict his freedom to choose where he goes. Right now, he can go anywhere in the world because his subcommittee has jurisdiction over not only Asia and the Pacific but “global environment.” The word “global” must have brought tears to his eyes when the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman agreed to give him that responsibility. Most recently he held a hearing on “saving the whales,” although there is another subcommittee that has responsibility for fish, wildlife and oceans. So, I am sure we can expect to hear about Eni’s globetrotting adventures in search of rare whales.

But even if he will not be able to call his own shots if Republicans control the House, the bipartisan requirement will remain. During their 12 years in the majority, a number of Republicans found great value in having Faleomavaega around because they knew he was always available to join a CODEL and that gave them the bipartisan cover they needed to put trips together. Meanwhile, now that there is a new requirement for travel justification, it would be interesting to see how he might justify a third trip to the remote Torres Strait Islands. We'd settle for seeing how he justified the first and second trips.

In short: if he’s breathing, he’s traveling.

Faleomavaega Escapes Local Scrutiny Again

The hands of Lisa Williams must be raw from all the high fives she gets from other staff when the local media lets her boss Faleomavaega skate out of yet more difficulty in trying to explain how American Samoa will fare under national policies being considered. Williams, who is Faleomavaega’s chief press aide, also is his chief of staff, top legislative assistant and, with her six-figure salary partly paid by the Foreign Affairs Committee, his chief foreign policy adviser as well. Some say she performs other services for Faleomavaega as well but that’s a story for another day.

Since Faleomavaega gets mainly positive coverage in the local media in American Samoa, you would have to say Williams well earns her hefty salary. But you would have to consider that it isn’t a fair fight in the first place. American Samoa has two newspapers. One is more of a community newspaper that comes out three times a week and does not have the resources to do much more than run his press releases. The larger, daily, newspaper, Samoa News, is an Associated Press affiliate and does have the resources but it, too, contents itself largely with running Faleomavaega’s releases. He is also helped by the fact that his sister-in-law is one of the paper’s editors.

The single television station is government-owned and has an evening newscast that largely ignores the delegate. Only one of the local radio stations has a local news operation. It, too, pretty much runs his releases. Another station gives the delegate an hour each week for a show with content of his own choosing, so a sitting member of Congress could hardly have a sweeter deal than that. No wonder Williams has the time to do multiple jobs at once. She hardly has to break a sweat in dealing with the local press and, somewhat surprisingly, no one in the national press has paid much attention to Faleomavaega, even though fewer than 8,000 people every two years have made it possible for him to rise in Congress to the point at which he now is only two heartbeats away from chairing the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That would make him ostensibly a key shaper of American Foreign Policy, as frightening as that thought would be.

However, as Faleomavaega has demonstrated over an over again, he is no team player and has a foreign policy of his own, even if no one can figure out what it is. Consistency has never been his strongest suit. So, even though he is a protege of the late Rep. Phil Burton, the same San Francisco congressman who mentored Nancy Pelosi and George Miller, it is unlikely they will ever put the House’s foreign affairs machinery into his unstable hands. Evidence? Pelosi took a delegation to China last year to discuss climate change but did not include Eni, even though his subcommittee has jurisdiction over China and global environmental issues. She also did not put him on her massive delegation to Copenhagen for international global warming talks.

If anything, Faleomavaega’s foreign policy seems to be pro-dictator. He famously toasted Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi a couple of years ago on one of his multiple trip to Vietnam and in January this year he helped the local Cambodia Communists celebrate the annual observance of the Vietnam communists’ invasion of Cambodia to topple the Pol Pot government. That gesture was so controversial that the other members of his delegation diplomatically absented themselves from the occasion.

He is so loved in Kazakhstan that the dictator there (who also held the job as a Communist during Soviet times) even took out an advertisement in the Washington Post to praise one of his several visits to the central Asian country. He also has turned in recent years from being a friend of Taiwan to being an ardent backer of the regime in Beijing and--in a demonstration it is not just communists he adores--he has become the chief defender of Fiji’s military dictatorship, in the process condemning (and alienating) Australia and New Zealand. He has no fans in Jakarta because of his attempts to force Indonesia to give up its West Papua province, they are not wild about him in Ankara because of his stance on Armenian genocide and Tokyo is not pleased about his demands that Japan compensate World War II Korean sex slaves.

But how much of all this do the people know about in American Samoa? None. Unless he puts it in a press release, the local media will not touch it. And the voters cheer him on even if members of his own party in Washington wish he would just go away. There always are hopes because his health has been in general decline for years and at age 67 he can’t hope to go on much longer. He can hardly walk, has had major heart surgery and is seriously overweight. His travel schedule is so brutal, that he can be seen nodding off to sleep in congressional hearings on occasions when he is passing through Washington.

One occasion in Washington he never misses is the annual State of the Union address. Viewers always know he is there because he is one of those members who shows up in the House chamber hours early on the day of the speech so he can assure himself a seat on the aisle the president comes down as he makes his way to the podium. That way he can shake hands with the president and be seen on television. Except this year.

Adorned with his trademark bolo tie (the only member of the House who does not regularly wear a standard necktie--not even those members with Indian blood wear the bolo), he could be seen this year sitting next to his freshman colleague from the Northern Marianas on a separate aisle. Perhaps he wanted some distance after having blasted Obama last week for not ordering Secretary of State to hold a summit with island leaders while she was in the region.

So, how did he escape local scrutiny again? Well, at the State of Union, Obama asked Congress to impose a three-year spending freeze on all discretionary domestic programs. The story of the speech was carried in Samoa News but buried in the paper and no attempt was made to tie the request to the local situation. A freeze would be significant if not fatal to the local economy because Faleomavaega is asking for a $25 million subsidy to offset mandated wage hikes which threaten to force the remaining cannery to pull out. In fact, the canner has asked for only a three-month extension of its tax exemption rather than a year as they await word on what Congress is willing to provide.

Not a word out of anyone as to what effect the spending freeze would have on Eni’s $25 million request. And there is no evidence Samoa News took the simple and logical step of asking him, either by phone or by e-mail or through Lisa Williams, what the freeze would mean. Not a word in the paper. Not a single word.

So, today Obama has sent a budget request to Congress for the fiscal year that begins October 1 (fiscal year 2011). It is in the amount of 3.8 trillion dollars. Now that the budget has been made public, the various agencies can talk about their programs. If not to Faleomavaega (who may be traveling), Samoa News could make a simple call to the director of the Office of Insular Affairs at Interior, a Samoan, or to the desk officer, also a Samoan, or to the director of OIA’s budget office to ask “how much has been included to fund Faleomavaega’s tiny request of $25 million?” That’s $25,000,000 out of a budget of $3.8 trillion. Not billion, but trillion!

Don’t hold your breath. Most likely Samoa News and the radio station will wait for his press handout in which he will brag once again how he helped prevent the budget cutters from whacking away at the $23 million subsidy it provides the local government for its operations and $10 million for capital improvements, even though those amounts have stayed at the same level the whole time he has been in office while the population has doubled. Lisa Williams can pull last year’s release out of the file, update it, send it off to Pago Pago and high five the staff again as she lights up her victory cigar.

We are betting there is NO money in the Interior budget for Faleomavaega’s little scheme, which should once and for all convince all doubters that his bill is going nowhere at all. Perhaps his attack on Clinton and Obama last week was meant to give him an excuse for not delivering: retaliation by Obama for him “standing up for the little guy.”

Stay tuned.

Faleomavaega’s Credibility in Washington Continues to Sink

While he may have gained renewed popularity here last fall thanks to his comfortable re-election margin, it has not helped his credibility in Washington, where his troubles continue despite his party’s control of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

It is hard to know where to begin.

Eni and the other non-voting delegates were invited to a White House reception recently along with a couple dozen other Members of Congress. It was a routine event that was one of several receptions the administration is holding for legislators from both parties. So unremarkable that neither Delegates Madeleine Bordallo (GU) nor Donna Christensen (VI) bothered to make note of it by press release but Faleomavaega not only issued a release but even had his wife come in from Utah, where she has lived apart from him for a number of years, to accompany his to the White House.

Perhaps President Obama was tossing him a bone, since his secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is not including him in her entourage on her first trip abroad, to the Far East. Just as Obama took with him on Air Force One to Illinois the Republican congressman for the area he was visiting, Peoria, so, too, is it not unusual for a secretary of State to take key members of Congress with him/her when traveling abroad, especially when Congress is out of session.

When he was picked again to chair his House subcommittee, Eni said: “I thank the people of American Samoa whose chairmanship this is,” Faleomavaega said. “I look forward to bringing a Pacific perspective to U.S. foreign policy affecting this part of the world, and to working closely with the Obama Administration and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to bring renewed commitment and attention to this vital region that has been overlooked for too long.”

Looks like he won’t be working all that closely with Hillary because even though Congress passed the stimulus bill and recessed for a long Presidents’ Day holiday, Eni is nowhere to be seen with Clinton, who also declined to testify at his hearing on North Korea last week, or even send a lower level official, even though she is traveling to South Korea as part of her trip this week.

Maybe Hillary doesn’t want Eni anywhere nearby while she is in Jakarta trying to establish a new strategic partnership. According to this article in The Jakarta Post http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/17/us-and-indonesia-enter-a-strategic-partnership.html the Obama administration is nervous that some members of their own party, like Faleomavaega, might upset the applecart by pushing their human rights causes. It is rumored that Jakarta will be one of the earliest trips Obama himself will make and Clinton likely will lay the groundwork for that. It will be interesting to see if he takes Eni along with him either. There are still people convinced Eni made a secret deal with the Indonesians to seal Obama’s school records while Eni was on a visit there himself last year.

So, exactly where is Eni if not with Hillary? Well, he’s in Kuwait visiting Samoan troops. That is nowhere near the Asia-Pacific region over which his subcommittee has jurisdiction.

Ooops, we forgot. His subcommittee also considers global environmental questions, so that gives him license to travel anywhere he pleases. No doubt his chairman added that responsibility to keep Eni out of Washington as much as possible. The more he is in the air, the less damage he can do on the ground. We can just picture his press release writers doing their best trying to suppress giggles as they wrote that he also would be going to the Vatican on this trip to confer with Holy See officials on—get this—environmental issues.

Before leaving town, Eni said “I am grateful to Chairman Berman of the Foreign Affairs’ Committee for allowing me to visit our soldiers in Kuwait, and to meet with officials in Italy regarding ways we can work together to address the serious issue of climate change affecting our Pacific Island region.” We’re sure his boys in the back room chuckled and high-fived each other when Samoa News ran that one without incredulity.

Eni undoubtedly was happy to have the opportunity to get out of town and lick his wounds after his humiliating defeat in the stimulus package last week. All he really came up with for American Samoa was a GAO study (which he could have ordered on his own authority) of the impact of minimum wage raises in the territory. Even that was not a singular achievement because a study for the Northern Marianas will be conducted at the same time.

The four territorial delegates--all Democrats--offered an amendment to the stimulus bill requesting $500 million for the OIA to provide for critically needed, high-priority, and shovel-ready capital improvement (CIP) projects for American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) but it was rejected by the House. In contrast, the new governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno (R), did get infrastructure money for his island. So much for party connections.

Eni made several appeals to the Senate, including one to his long-time “ally,” Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), now the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. As such, Inouye was positioned to approve this request with a nod of his head but he did not. So, all the territories wound up with is money coming out of the usual formula grants. Eni's groveling to Inouye is enormously embarrassing. He put out a press release after he met with him in which he said: "After having worked with Senator Inouye for some 20 years now, he has my utmost respect and admiration. He is more than a mentor to me. He is my friend, and I am deeply appreciative of everything he does for American Samoa . . . Truly we are fortunate that a man like Senator Inouye has our best interest at heart. It is my privilege to serve with Senator Inouye . . . "

Nice try but no ad on for the islands. Could he possibly have wrapped his lips any more tightly around Inouye's masculine appendage?

In their letter appealing for CIP funds, the delegates suggested that “If offsets are required [in the bill], then we have proposed offsetting these increases with decreases in amounts available to the insular areas in certain programs in the bill, based on an understanding that the funding increase to the OIA be fairly distributed amongst the territories.” It went on to say “Increased funds at the OIA would provide greater flexibility to territories in addressing high priority infrastructure projects which are “shovel ready” and can be commenced within the next 18 months,” and concluded “We further believe that OIA’s existing management structure and its familiarity with each territory makes it well-suited to execute these projects.”

Sorry, Eni, yet again no cigar. Give him some credit, however, for in a letter to Gov. Togiola Tulafono, Senate President Gaoteote Palaie and House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale, Eni admitted congressional conferees who met to iron out final language of the bill did not provide a “separate funding stream” for the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs for specific needs of the territories as originally sought by the Delegates. Hard to swallow, but facts are facts.

But, speaking of the minimum wage study, we suggest GAO, while they are at it, examine Eni’s statements over the past two years to try to find some consistency. By our count, he took seven different positions in 2006-08. So far this year, he already seems to have taken two. Last month he wrote Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller urging him to halt the next minimum wage incremental increase due in May but in commenting on the GAO study approved in the stimulus bill he said “Can we sustain a third increase? I do not know the answer to this question. This is why I have called for a serious study of the problem because, like Mr. Robinson (chairman of the American Samoa Chamber of Commerce), I believe enough is enough.” Huh? Come again?

Sounds to us like he is setting up others to take the blame if the increases keep on coming. “On repeated occasions,” said Faleomavaega, “I have requested this information from ASG and from our local Chamber of Commerce because, until we have compelling evidence to do so, Congress will not and should not roll back minimum wage. The time has come for the Chamber, ASG, and our canneries to provide the GAO with the information it needs for Congress to determine whether or not our economy can or cannot afford future increases,” he said.

So much for his letter to Miller last month asking increases be halted.

Meanwhile, do not hold your breath waiting for this headline: “Eni Says Congress Should Not Roll Back Minimum Wage.”

Maybe we are splitting hairs. Maybe he is saying there should be no increase but no roll back either. GAEO should ask.

Before leaving the subject of the stimulus bill, we spotted one Mormon website http://mormonism-unveiled.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-latter-day-saints-lds-in-congress.html that reported that the Mormon members of Congress all voted along party lines, with the Democrats for it and Republicans against it, noting that the Democrats were in effect voting against the Mormon value of self-reliance. Eni is one of only four Mormon Democrats in Congress. The vast majority are Republican.

On another note in Washington, the freshman delegate from the Northern Marianas, Greg Sablan, is beginning to make some legislative moves. Recently he introduced a bill to give the delegates from the Northern Marianas and American Samoa additional service e academy appointments, equivalent to the number given to the delegates from Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Eni has signed on as a cosponsor. Our question is why only now? Eni’s been there 20 years.

One of Eni’s first bills 20 years ago was to create four reserved seats for Indians, an idea Michael Barone, an influential political writer and Almanac of American Politics editor, called one of the worst legislative ideas he had ever heard.

Don't expect to see any of this in the local media, especially Samoa News, which wouldn't know analysis if it bit them. Especially when it comes to Eni. His sister-in-law is a top editor on the paper.

And so it goes.

Faleomavaega the Foreign Affairs Expert?

Faleomavaega has made no secret of the fact that he is more interested in foreign affairs than insular policy. He even put out a statement that he turned down the chairmanship of the insular subcommittee when it was offered to him in December 2006 in favor of accepting the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and International Environment Affairs. Those who are apprehensive about Gov. Sarah Palin, with no foreign policy experience, being a heart beat away from the presidency ought to be almost as concerned that Faleomavaega is but a couple of heart beats from the chairmanship of the full Foreign Affairs committee. Fortunately the two members more senior than he is are younger and in better health. Then again, the late Tom Lantos also looked pretty healthy.

It is no secret that there are a lot of Democrats in the foreign policy establishment who are hoping the perpetually exhausted and lame, and often incoherent Faleomavaega either retires or gets beat because he is a loose cannon that no one can control. No one is ever quite sure what is going to come out of his mouth. Mercifully, he travels a lot, so diplomats in Washington can breathe a sigh of relief but when he is around, people brace themselves. And he also periodically demonstrates his ignorance or at least lack of preparation .

The former president of the Marshall Islands is Kessai Note, has a last name that is pronounced as in "vote." But Faleomavaega addressed him at one Capitol Hill gathering as President "No-tay." Blame it on sloppy staff work if you will but when Note came back into town a year later for chair the Pacific Island Leaders summit, Faleomavaega again introduced him at a gathering as No-tay.

Moreover, at a Papua New Guinea independence day reception, Faleomavaega was invited to speak as the senior congressional representative in attendance. The PNG ambassador notably cringed when Faleomavaega used the ceremonial occasion to bang on Indonesia for its policy towards West Papua, even though Indonesian and U.S. diplomats were in the room and his views do not match the policy of either government. The ambassador also must have noted that Faleomavaega referred to his country as "the Republic of Papua New Guinea" when PNG is a member of the Commonwealth that recognizes the Queen of England as its head of state, so it is in fact not a republic at all.

We also have seen a lobbyist's confidential memo to his clients on Korean issues from a couple of years ago in which he calls Faleomavaega a lightweight that the then-chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA), tolerated primarily because he always count on Faleomavaega to sign up for committee trips, and that would give the trips bi-partisan cover.

Now, more recently, the noted Turkish intellectual, Ali Bulaç, attended a congressional hearing and wrote an article, "Impressions from the United States," on the World Bulletin blog. Let his words speak for themselves: "Last week, a special session on the Georgian crisis and relations with Russia was held at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried gave a speech at the meeting and answered questions from committee members. Democrat Eni Faleomavaega, one of the members of the committee, asked this question: 'Was Turkey invited to NATO?' Fried replied, 'Sir, Turkey has been a NATO member for 56 years.' Read it here:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/author_article_detail.php?id=1843. How embarrassing. Especially since Faleomavaega was one of the co-sponsors of the ill-fated resolution that passed the committee last year that condemned Turkey for genocide policy towards Armenians during World War I. The protests from Turkey and Turkish Americans were so strong that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the measure pulled from the House calendar.

So much for all the foreign affairs expertise Faleomavaega clearly has not accumulated over nearly 20 years in the House.