WA Post on Karen Hughes: "Mission Impossible" (or "Almost Unfeasable")

Bush policies remain obstacle for Hughes
Aide uses campaign tactics in Mideast tour to improve U.S. image

ANALYSIS
By Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:27 p.m. ET Sept. 29, 2005

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9535917/

ISTANBUL, Sept. 29 - When Karen Hughes met with Egyptians on a boat on the Nile River during the second day of her Middle East tour, she wore a piece of jewelry she had just purchased from the noted Egyptian designer Azza Fahmi: a pearl necklace with a medallion inscribed with the Arabic words for "love, sincerity, friendship."

The inscription echoed the themes that Hughes, the undersecretary of state and confidante of President Bush charged with burnishing the U.S. image in the Muslim world, stressed relentlessly at every public forum during her five-day trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Hughes focused on common love of family, her desire to reach out to bridge gaps in perception, and the long history of friendship and exchanges between peoples.

Indeed, Hughes brought the tactics of American political campaigning to the world of diplomacy, mixing evocative images with simple and sometimes hokey lines -- "I am a mom and I love kids" -- designed to strike an emotional chord with Muslim audiences.

But as Hughes flew back to Washington on Thursday, the immensity of her task loomed larger than it did when she left. Local news media attention, which appeared to grow over the course of the week, mixed pictures of her holding smiling children with skeptical and dismissive reports. Her audiences, especially in Egypt, often consisted of elites with long ties to the United States, but many people she spoke with said the core reason for the poor U.S. image remained U.S. policies, not how those policies were marketed or presented. Abdel-Rahman Rashid, a prominent writer and head of al-Arabiya satellite television, wrote in the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that, in the Arab world, the United States "resembles a woman of ill repute whom everyone wants to court, but only in secret." He said Hughes "will face an important decision: repair the U.S.'s reputation, which is nearly impossible, or modify the country's policies, also almost unfeasible."

Am I seeing that right? They have Bush pictured along side Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy? It isn't photoshopped to be ridiculous, or anything?

I really wanted to comment on that in my original post and thought "Nah, I'm just gonna put it out there and see if anyone else is as outraged as I am."

Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, and Bunnypants.

:evilgrin:

as is her president. She can't understand that they don't want to be like us. We ignore our poor, we don't have decent medical care for our own, and we are openly racist against our own under Bush.

...Bush, and everyone attached to him, is accustomed to photo ops and hand-selected audiences. Karen found out the hard way what happens when the crowd hasn't been "screened."

I'm stunned and dismayed by the kind of thinking that results in sending this woman into Arab / Muslim countries in the name of "improving the U.S. image."

and you'll see why he sent this woman. He has neither logic nor common sense, but she stood by him. He's a weak *******.

Ray Taliaferro went off on this topic last night, specifically what Hughes encountered when she told Saudi women that they should have the right to drive:

Saudi Woman: Do you have a car?

Hughes: Yes.

Saudi Woman: Do you drive it?

Hughes: (silence)

...because the Saudi woman asking the question was SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW that Hughes is CHAUFFEURED EVERYWHERE SHE GOES.

:evilgrin:

representing the United States 101.01???

The Diplomatic Corp Guys? They have courses for the outgoing peeps???

101.03 Learn/Get acquainted with, the Cultures, History, of the Countries on Itinerary....

101.02 Find out who will attend the various functions, background.

101.01 Current Events, Who is who and What is What....

A bit of classic reporting of the bungling Karen Hughes in the Mid-East from the NY Times …

Karen Hughes, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, tried to make news in the Middle East by defending unpopular U.S. policies.

Huges, “also repeatedly asserted, no less than three times in an interview on the Arabic satellite network Al Jazeera, that Mr. Bush was the first American president to call for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. It was a bit of an exaggeration, since President Bill Clinton endorsed such a state a couple of weeks before he left office in 2001.”

MORE- http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=727#more-727

1. Never introduce a new product in August. (Andrew Card)

2. Never try to push a crappy product in September. (Journeyman)

of humility...and not even humility, they just, like any anus up in anyone's face, will blow out gassy air and call it sweetness of life.

i am outraged at their putting the bushy boy next to washington, lincoln and kennedy!