THE SPINE NOVEMBER 1, 2007
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Karen Hughes is gone.The first question to ask: will anyone notice?It's not that she accomplished anything. That is, she accomplished nothing. But her assigned task was to change how the world feels about the U.S.Ms. Hughes contrived that to mean she was a strategist. If only the Senate had known, it would never have confirmed her. So she had ideas: the first, predictably, was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I, for one, can't grasp how that would ease hostility against America in Afghanistan or Pakistan -- unless one assumes that all those angry men on the streets carry Palestine in their hearts. And what about the rancor in South America against the U.S.? Are Senor Chavez's multitudes also angered that Jews are in their holy places?So we come to Iraq. Hughes told the Wall Street Journal that "negative events never help." Very sage. The Blackwater shoot-up in Iraq didn't help. Why, that overwhelms the quotidian suicide bombings. And her own overestimating the number of Iraqis murdered with poison gas by Saddam didn't help also. Oh, if only she had been accurate, keeping the kill rate to 200,000 not at 300,000. The Muslim masses want the under-secretary of state for p.r. to be very precise. There is no hyperbole in their political culture.In any case, these are her results: nothing. Even though four times as many p.r. folk who speak Arabic were dispatched to do interviews than before she took her post. With whom will we replace her?
6 comments
Charlotte Beers?
How about Julie Aigner-Clark?
Judy Regan?
- teplukhin2you
November 1, 2007 at 7:00pm
Angelina Jolie
- MOLLYSIMON
November 1, 2007 at 7:39pm
I think Monica Goodling is looking for a job. She's at least as qualified for this position as Karen Hughes was.
- myzaguirre
November 1, 2007 at 7:59pm
Seriously, Anne Applebaum made an excellent first cut at the Pew survey data on anti-American and realized that there are pockets of strong support for the US, even for Bush, in certain demographics, most prominently what the media biz calls the "aspirational" classes that seek social mobility and tend to view America as a symbol of opportunity rather than an ideological fixation.
In developed nations, the aspirational types tend to have lower education and income; in the developing world it's the reverse. Men are more pro-American than women, often by large margins.
www.anneapplebaum.com/.../07_fp_pro-a.html
- teplukhin2you
November 1, 2007 at 8:03pm
hee,hee...peretz, this is one of your best posts. Spot on and droll.
- MrCookie1
November 1, 2007 at 8:48pm
Marty
Scathing and funny but I doubt if the best among us, even if they spoke Arabic like king Fahd and were masters of diplomacy, could have accomplished anything in the last few years. The real outrage is the blantant nepotism in her appointment and the pandemic of demeritocary spread by the Bush administration. The only thing I've seen Bush do seriously is campaign. All other presidential duties, including announcing the Iraq war on TV if you watch F911 footage, are carried out with a cavalier, playful attitude as if he were an "acting" president. Somebody ought to remind Bush that for most folks in the world, life is a serious business and they take their jobs, however big or small, seriously.
- uday_shankar
November 2, 2007 at 9:33pm