Oh, brother. I just got this item from Congressional Quarterly. Apparently, a Congressional delegation went to Iraq today. The trip was supposed to be a secret. News outlets that knew of the trip had been told that the information was embargoed. But someone's been teaching these fools in Congress to use Twitter. SO GUESS WHAT HAPPENED:
A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world -- or at least Twitter.com readers--now know they're there.
"Just landed in Baghdad," messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets.
Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.
Nobody expected, though, that a lawmaker with such an extensive national security background would be the first to break the silence. And in such a big way.
Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers' trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.
Word fail. One hundred and forty words fail.