Karen Hughes: Does Pro-Choice Still=Pro-Terrorist?

By DHinMI

It takes a lot anymore for me to be surprised by idiotic moves by the Bush administration, but this is one of those increasingly rare instances where Bush's stupidity on matters of policy and personal loyalty manage to leave me stunned:

President Bush will nominate one of his closest longtime advisers to a key State Department post in an effort to help repair the United States' image abroad, especially in the Arab world, a senior administration official said Saturday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the announcement that Bush has selected Karen Hughes to be undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs will be made early next week, possibly as early as Monday. The position requires Senate confirmation.

The official said that Hughes, 48, will spearhead the administration's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East...

She has little experience in foreign affairs but enjoys the confidence of the president and is close to the new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Since leaving Washington, Hughes, a former Texas television reporter, has continued to advise the president from her home in Austin...

The post has been vacant since last summer.

Public diplomacy toward the Middle East should be one of our most important initiatives in combating terrorism, but the position has been vacant since last summer.  Now one might conclude that by placing such a trusted aide in the position that Bush recognizes the importance of the job.  However, Karen Hughes has zero foreign policy background; she was an on-screen news reader for a local television station before going to work on Bush's gubernatorial campaign.  There's nothing to suggest that she has any sophistication or special understanding of Arab culture and societies, or can understand what Arabs think about the U.S.  People involved in public diplomacy should be able to understand the perspectives of others in order to come to better understandings.  But Hughes' career has never involved understanding others; her specialty is message discipline, the means by which George W. Bush repeats the same nostrums ad nasuseum--uniter not a divider, compassionate conservatism, yada yada yada...

But there's one other thing that tells me Karen Hughes will be grossly incompetent in the role of improving the image of the United States in the Middle East:  she's an asshole who doesn't know how to make basic moral and political distinctions the pertain directly to the problem of terrorism, as she showed last April, the day of the huge pro-choice rally on the National Mall, with this comment about abortion:

"I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life," she said. "President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."

Anyone who would equate a medical procedure that a majority of Americans believe should be legal and that is protected by rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States with acts such as the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed over 3,000 people on September 11th, 2001, is one of the worst people imaginable to coordinate public diplomacy toward the Middle East.  Karen Hughes is unsuited to coordinate public diplomacy toward the Middle East because she doesn't have the faintest understanding of what Americans believe and value, of what Arabs think about the United States, and of who poses the real terrorist threat to the United States of America--and who doesn't. 

Comments

[Kagro X]

Well, if that's not a "flood the zone" play, I don't know what is.

[Mike in MI]

This is a clear-cut case of the loyalty payoff. She goes from news reader to the Governor's then President's political aide, to having too much of Washington and going home, to getting hauled out to help Bush with another too-close election, to this? The Margaret Tutwiler Endowed Chair at the State Dep't.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that with this move, the Rice-to-State move, Rove getting an official title, and a casting off of the less sycophantic of last terms cabinet, Bush is adopting something of a seige mentality by surrounding himself with his most loyal advisors--they who would never desert him, no matter what. "Karen, Karl, Condi! You won't leave me, will you? You'll keep them away, right?"

The selection of Hughes is particularly odious. Once when asked what she thought was Bush's greatest fault, she actually answered, "I think his biggest fault is that he is too good to be president."

Makes one shudder.

[M.A. Hameed]

Can I get the email address of Karen Hughes so that I may write to her directly.

[TOM]

PRO-CHOICE DID THIS: EVIL.