Posted on 12/10/2007 5:48:43 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
President Bush intends to name a well-known conservative commentator and journalist to lead the State Department's struggling efforts to improve the U.S.'s image abroad, replacing long-time confidante Karen Hughes, who is leaving government by the end of the year, The Associated Press has learned.
Bush plans to tap James K. Glassman, now chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, to be the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, administration officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.
The officials said the choice was expected to be made public by Friday, the day Hughes has set for her departure and return to Texas after two years in the post.
Glassman was chosen in part because he has already won Senate confirmation for his current job, which he began in June, and the administration was looking for someone who could avoid a bruising confirmation fight in an election year, the officials said.
If confirmed, Glassman would take over an outreach operation that has been criticized for being ineffective, particularly in the Muslim world.
Hughes boosted the number of Arabic speakers representing the U.S. in Arabic media, set up three rapid public relations response centers overseas to monitor and respond to the news, nearly doubled the public diplomacy budget to almost $900 million annually. Despite her efforts, polls have shown no improvement in the world's view of the U.S.
Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center survey said the unpopular Iraq war is a persistent drag on the U.S. image and has helped push favorable opinion of the U.S. in Muslim Indonesia, for instance, from 75 percent in 2000 to just 30 percent last year.
Glassman should be familiar with the challenges facing the top U.S. pitchman. He served in 2003 on the congressionally mandated Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, officials noted.
In addition to his work with the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Glassman is a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington and publisher of the group's magazine, The American.
Glassman also is a former top manager of several national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and U.S. News & World Report magazines and the congressional newspaper Roll Call. He was also a Washington Post columnist.
Sucking up to the Muslims: an impossible job. I think less of Karen Hughes for having agreed to take on a job like that. Needless to say, it was a counterproductive waste of time.
I read half of Karen Hughes’ book before I threw it across the room. This woman has a mealy mouthed whiney son who can’t exist without mommie. She showed great promise in the beginning and after George Bush got elected Karen Hughes proceeded to implode. Too bad she wasted the President’s time.
She was no Jean Kirkpatrick. Maybe the lesson is never be mealymouthed about who you are. We are a great and wonderful and also decent people. Nothing to apologize for, ever.
What is your point?
Needless to say, it was a counterproductive waste of time.
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She was very loyal to Bush, way too much so, and it finally all took its toll in the end. Just look at all the good people that left him, once they understood his ONE WORLD, UTOPIAN, anti-border, anti-soverignty agenda. He ardently continued the roll of the State Department as a pandering organization for all of our enemies. It is totally ineffective and near useless due to the spineless leadership in this administration. And that applies to both the White House and the Conress. Take Trent Lott for example -— in fact take him, and never bring him back. Just one of the many example of DISGUSTING RINOs.
I agree. Ms. Hughes is a good woman who tried to help a flawed and defective political leader who was her personal friend. She deserved better than the incompetant she served so loyally.
I said it before and repeat it again - the Bushes are the Republican answer to the Kennedy Klan.
I hope and pray that the sequel to this President’s monumental legacy of chaos, domestic invasion, and foreign policy idiocy is not a Democrat Administration, but a Republican we can all be proud of, one who will save America from its worst nightmare since 1860.
Times running short to take care of the important business. Appointing another PR flack isn't productive.
I am guessing that GW Bush did not invent the office of undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs — he probably doesn’t have the option of dissolving the office — that being the case, I don’t have a problem with appointing Glassman to it.
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Right on, you nailed it!
That's typical AP nonsense. If Glassman was employed as a columnist by the WaPo for so many years, not to mention The New Republic and US News and World Report, he knows all too well on which side his bread is buttered.
Friggin’ Karen Hughes and the dam State Department was spending $700 million per year on the U.S. Middle East Television Network, better known as Al Hurra, which has been sharply criticized for failing to gain market share.
If the United States is to help “reverse the flow of ideas,” who is responsible? Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, at the hearing asked the Pentagon’s Doran if anyone was in charge of countering extremist ideology. Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, was his answer.
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