Posted on 07/22/2005 6:53:22 PM PDT by blam
'Hurricane Karen' on mission to woo the Arab world
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 23/07/2005)
Karen Hughes, the Texan who is credited with helping George W. Bush win two elections, set out her stall yesterday for a yet more daunting task - rebranding America to the Arab world.
She appeared before a Senate committee, seeking endorsement as under-secretary for public diplomacy, where her task will be to reverse the global tide of anti-Americanism.
Karen Hughes: promises
"Hurricane Karen" has taken on and triumphed at her fair share of tricky public relations assignments. She softened Mr Bush's conservative image in his two presidential runs and before that in his two campaigns to be governor of Texas.
"I am not naive enough to think that this is not a huge challenge for all of us," Mrs Hughes told a hearing of the Senate foreign relations committee. "This is a massive undertaking. It is generational and it is global."
Her ambition is to defeat "propaganda with truth", and she will be guided by four Es - engagement, exchanges, education and empowerment.
"The only way we are going to win the war against terror is to have little boys and little girls across the world grow up with a greater sense of tolerance and understanding of each other and of our country," she said.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre found that of 16 nations surveyed recently only two, India and Poland, had a more favourable view of America than of China.
So will Mrs Hughes have to temper her Texan forthrightness to woo the Arab world, the primary focus of her new job? She was not asked. But it is probably astute of the White House to appoint another of Mr Bush's trusted confidantes, Dina Powell, an Arab-American, to be her number two.
Yesterday Mrs Hughes promised to listen, citing an old Afghan proverb that counsels "it takes two hands to clap". When she heads off on the first of many planned missions, American journalists, long used to her skill in talking over objections, will look on with interest.
She could start in Hollywood.
I like KH a lot. But I don't know how well a woman -- any woman -- is going to go over in the Arab world.
OTOH, the women over there might listen to her and then think, "Hey, you know what...."
She has an uphill battle. The place to start is the US News organizations and Hollywood who both love to trash their own country and culture. Until we get the MSM and Hollywood under control it is useless to even take this task on.
...set out her stall yesterday ...WHAT kind of pompous arrogant wind-bag wrote this?
screw woo, bomb the bastards
Trying to convince the Arab world that we are the good guys is a waste of time.
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