Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff are doing a wonderful job of making the United States Department of State look like the Ringling Brother's Clown College.

Last week's diplomatic trip to Mexico followed the script already written on Hillary's first diplomatic trip to Russia, where the Secretary presented the Russian president with a big red button gag gift. Mrs. Clinton said her staff had worked hard to translate the word "reset" to Russian and the button was symbol of resetting the Russian and U.S. relationship to pre-Bush administration.

But, the button didn't say reset--it said "overcharged." Oops! The whole incedent was captured on video and made headlines around the world.

The smaller of the two gaffs Clinton made in Mexico was that she indicated the U.S. is working to reinstitute an expired automatic weapons ban. At the time of her comment there was no effort to reinstitute the ban, and the Secretary of State seems to have forgotten that she is not a legislator, but an envoy of our president and his administration, not her own!

The bigger gaff came when the Secretary and her staff visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Thursday, March 26.

The Catholic Church teaches that a peasant named Juan Diego was presented with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a visit by the Virgin Mary to the spot where the Basillica now stands. The miracle of the iconic cloth and its image of the Virgin Mary is one of the miracles that was cited in the 2002 cannonization of Juan Diego as the first indigenous saint in the new world.

Secretary Clinton turned to Monsignor Diego Monroy and asked him, "Who painted the image?"

The Monsignor answered, "God."

Competent staffing by the Secretary of State's staff could have, and should have, avoided this display of ingnorance.

This is another story that wasn't widely reported by the U.S. press, but has been reported in the international press.

Why does the U.S. press corp embargo these stories?