Foreign Service Workers Banned from Speech

100,000 200,000+ attended today's speech by Barack Obama in Berlin. But US foreign service workers and diplomats were not among them.

The LA Times reported a little after noon eastern time today:

On orders from the State Department, the rally has been declared off-limits to Foreign Service personnel because it is a "partisan political activity." Under the Hatch Act, civil servants in the United States are allowed to attend such rallies as long as they do not make political contributions to work for candidates.

But State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy told the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung that the administration wanted to draw a line in the sand when it came to partisan stuff abroad. "We always maintain that no U.S. government Foreign Service person overseas should be seen to be advocating one side or the other," he said.

The diplomats' union, the American Foreign Service Assn., is appealing the ruling as "an unnecessarily narrow interpretation" of the rules.

Unnecessary, indeed. Is the Bush administration that worried about John McCain's prospects this fall???