Reality Check: The failure of Karen Hughes' latest mission

As many of you already know Karen Hughes has finally made it to her post as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. While she has NO foreign policy experience she is a good buddy of the President and has long worked to create the image of George W. Bush. Her new job is to convince the people of the Middle East that, dispute all the bombings and talks of crusades and stuff, George Bush really cares about brown people...or Arab people, or something like that.

Karen Hughes, of course, is a former TV reporter from who joined the George W. gang back in Texas. She was often his right hand person, and is credited for creating the image which sent Bush to the Governors Mansion in Texas and then the White House. She called it quits recently ( "to spend more time with her family") but she has been called back to try to repair the damage not just to her boss' reputation, but for the entire country which has lost nearly all it's international credibility over the past 5 years.

Unfortunately, Hughes' plan for this weeks trip was the old familiar mix of arrogance (that people will believe what they say because, well, just because they say it), and political spin. This time however, instead of trying to convince Red states to believe her, she spent the week in the Middle East. It didn't go well. When Ms Hughes attempted to connect with Arab women by bragging about how females in the US could drive cars, she was criticized and heckled.

A group of Turkish female activists confronted Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes yesterday with heated complaints about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, turning a session designed to highlight the empowering of women into a raw display of anger at U.S. policy in the region. "This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.

BTW...If you thought that sending an official from the Bush Administration to Arab nations to tell them how to improve their lot would go over well - then apply for a job with the Bush administration today! Your lack of common sense will fit in nicely.

It doesn't end there. Sadly, even in this important task, the Administration can't break the pattern of deceit that so characterizes them. Seems that one of the strongest arguments Hughes chooses to tell her audiences isn't true at all.

She 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.

Yes, I know, lies by the Bush team has managed to fool some Americans over the years. But I already know an important fact that my Republicans friends (yes I have them) would be wise to learn - they are alone - in this country and in the world in accepting the word of this administration. No one else is being fooled but you.

Meanwhile the rest of us suffer from the unthoughtful and misleading public relations campaign Karen Hughes plans to continue. If her dishonest and condescending start is any indication of what is to come, our once great Nation may never recover from George W. Bush. Or Karen Hughes.