did a search and was surprised to not find this yet on Kos...C-Span should be hopping tomorrow..
Friday, Jul. 22, 2005
10 a.m.
Foreign Relations
To hold hearings to examine the nomination of Karen P. Hughes, of Texas, to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, with the rank of Ambassador,
Anyone else thinking that tomorrow's opportunity will be too good for the Dem's on the committee to pass up? With Hughes, there's a direct link to
to WHIG, the memo on Airforce One, (Plame Plane?)..and all the intrigue one can handle..or will she plead the fifth?
Has Hughes testified before Fitz' grand jury?
Start emailing the Senators on the committee, here's the list:
Richard G. Lugar
Joseph R. Biden
Chuck Hagel
Lincoln Chafee
George Allen
Norm Coleman
George V. Voinovich
Lamar Alexander
John E. Sununu
Lisa MurkowskiMel Martinez
Paul S. Sarbanes
Christopher J. Dodd
John F. Kerry
Russell D. Feingold
Barbara Boxer
Bill Nelson
Barack Obama
...from the White House Press corps today:
Q Scott, anything on how Karen Hughes is preparing for her confirmation hearing tomorrow, what the President expects from her and her new job, and with respect to the sort of war of ideas piece that you talked about earlier in the context of the anti-terror campaign, how much of a difference can be made by re-crafting the message?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the public diplomacy part of the war on terrorism is important. We are -- and Secretary Rice has spoken about this at length recently. We are going to continue to work to improve our public diplomacy efforts. There are a lot of people that have been working on that and they're doing a great job. Dina Powell, who was here at the White House, is now confirmed and over at the Department of State, already focusing on these issues. We look forward to the Senate moving forward quickly on Karen's confirmation so that she can go about doing the work at the State Department, as well.
But it's important for us to continue to communicate the values and -- or the values and what we stand for here in America. These are values that I think people share around the world. And the President talked about the importance of everybody living in freedom, because free societies are peaceful societies and freedom is something that is a universal right of all people.
Secretary of Spin?
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A25
I have only a glancing acquaintance with George Bush's good friend Karen Hughes. I met her on the first Bush presidential campaign and was awed by her uncanny ability to answer a question over and over again, each time with the same inflection, volume and, of course, words. This left me suspecting she had a computer chip implanted somewhere in her body or that she was naturally one of those people who, no matter how forceful your complaint, respond with the wholesome but empty phrase "Have a nice day." When she comes before the Senate for confirmation in her new job -- undersecretary of state -- Hughes should not have a nice day.
I have no animus toward Hughes, and this should not be seen as anything personal. It is just that Hughes, once a counselor to the president and always an intimate, represents an administration that values truth only in the abstract. In its day-to-day dealings with the American people, it has the ethical approach of a slippery door-to-door salesman -- anything to make the sale. Until the Bush administration vows to become more forthright, the Senate ought to put the Hughes nomination in mothballs.
Take, for instance, the government's smarmy practice of preparing video news releases and packaging them as actual television news. The New York Times recently detailed how government agencies prepare admiring reports on what they are doing and then send them off to local TV stations, which use them, sometimes pretending the reports are their own. Only a fool would expect the TV industry -- especially local TV news -- to grow up and embrace professional standards, but the government is a different story. It's ours. We fund it. It should not be using our money to propagandize us. That, truly, is adding insult to injury.
The Bush administration did not originate this practice. The Clintons did it, too. But the Bushies have apparently expanded it, and the administration has rejected a Government Accountability Office ruling that this sort of stuff is "covert propaganda" -- inappropriate on its face. What the administration seems not to understand is that the practice -- no matter when it originated and who else did it -- only enhances the White House's reputation for slyness.
It was also inappropriate for the Education Department to offer money to Armstrong Williams and other media figures -- a bit of Tammany largesse that spoke volumes about the ethical standards of some administration officials. Bush ordered it stopped, but no one was disciplined. Fortunately for the Education Department, a bribe can always be called a grant.
This kind of just-this-side-of-honest approach to things is exemplified by Bush's Social Security road show. You would think that any president, especially one who claims a landslide-like mandate, would be able to pitch a tent anywhere in this great nation and talk to Americans at random. But that is not what Bush does. His questioners are his groupies, adoring fans of our adorable president who would not think of asking him a hard question. They are vetted, examined down to their ideological DNA, rehearsed and then sent out like automatons to ask programmed questions. Bush's town meetings are town meetings only if the town is Pyongyang.
Of course, all of this is small potatoes compared with what it took to sell the Iraq war to the nation. Dick Cheney was a one-man Mount St. Helens, erupting lies and exaggerations about Iraq's (nonexistent) nuclear threat. Those lies cannot now be suddenly changed to truth because, at the moment, a fragile flower of democracy has poked through the sands of the Middle East. Hughes was once part of the White House smoke machine. Maybe she can't be held responsible for every White House fib, but she ought to be asked to explain the ones on her watch.
What matters most at the moment, however, is that Hughes is Bush's creation and a great target of opportunity. She represents a chance to force -- or, better yet, shame -- the Bush administration into ceasing its use of our money to sell us a bill of goods or pretend that its Social Security town halls, about as spontaneous as a military funeral, are really exercises in small-town democracy. Her nomination is a gift, a chance for Senate Democrats, even some Republicans (I'm looking at you, McCain) to get the Bush administration to stop blowing smoke. After all, this is not a Democratic or Republican issue. In the spirit of bipartisanship that Bush has long promised, his administration has been deceiving us all.
Arab News tonight:
State Dept to Launch `Charm Offensive' in Mideast
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News
WASHINGTON, 22 July 2005 -- Middle Easterners prepare yourselves to be wooed, because the US State Department is about to launch a genuine charm offensive in your direction.
The Bush Administration wants to improve its image abroad, especially among Arabs and Muslims, as they realize their status has gone south since the US invasion in Iraq. To help achieve their goal, they are bringing trusted aids back into service and appointing Arab Americans to key positions.
Former White House counselor Karen Hughes will face confirmation hearings today by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to become the new Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy.
Hughes will take over the Bush administration's troubled public diplomacy effort intended to improve the US image abroad, particularly in the Muslim world, where anti-Americanism has fueled extremist groups and terrorism.
The last undersecretary for public diplomacy, Margaret Tutwiler, quit last summer after less than a year on the job. The post has remained vacant since.
Hughes, 49, who has been one of President Bush's closest advisers since his tenure as Texas governor, returns to Washington after a three-year absence to put her son through high school in Texas.
At the State Department, she will work with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to reinvigorate the campaign for "hearts and minds" overseas.
Rice has also appointed Dina Habib Powell, an Egyptian born former White House personnel director, to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, Powell was sworn in Monday and will work directly under Hughes.
The appointment of Powell as an Assistant Secretary of State is part of an effort by the Bush Administration to include Arab Americans in prominent positions.
Rice called Powell "the embodiment of what it means to be an American and to be part of a multiethnic democracy." Powell said she would be "listening and understanding as much as speaking" in her two roles of Assistant Secretary of State and deputy to Karen Hughes.
Powell, 31, is the youngest person ever to direct the presidential personnel office and its estimated 35 employees. She is considered to be a "rising star" in President Bush's administration.
Fluent in Arabic, Powell has represented the administration in key forums across the Middle East on the president's freedom and reform agenda, the White House said.
Prior to joining the Bush administration, Powell served as director of congressional affairs at the Republican National Committee and as an aide to former US House Majority Leader Dick Armey, (R-Texas).
Born to middle-class parents, Dina is the daughter of Husni Habib, a Captain in the Egyptian army and Huda Suliman, a graduate of the American University in Cairo. She was four years old when her parents, Christian Copts, decided to immigrate to the US.
They settled in Dallas, Texas in 1977, where her father worked as a bus driver until he opened a convenience store. Dina is married to public affairs executive Richard Powell and has a 3-year-old daughter.
Washington insiders question whether the Hughes-Powell team will be able to overturn America's tarnished image abroad. Despite exchange programs, foreign language media, including what one colleague called "the useless" Radio Al-Sawa, critics say this Administration's public diplomacy campaign to promote American values of democracy, tolerance and pluralism abroad while combating negative images propagated in many parts of the world has largely been a failure.
The State Department spent $685 million on public diplomacy in 2004, but critics complain that it has not been increased enough since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that most of it has not targeted the Muslim world.
Though the impact of Hughes's reemergence in Washington would be largely lost on her new foreign audience, here in the capital it has tongues wagging. It also provides a reminder of the president's second-term penchant for rewarding loyal Texans, including Hughes and Powell, to top posts here.
Ambassador Joe Wilson is questioned by a French newspaper:
CLG: Who did you think was the source of the leak to Novak? Did you think that Rove was involved prior to the latest news? Do you think that Rove was indeed a source or the source?
JW: I wrote in my book that there was a conspiracy in the white house to find out everything they could about me and then use it against me. I think the logical place to look for the conspiracy is in the White House Iraq group (WHIG) which included Rove, Scooter Libby, Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer and others. I don't know who among them might have been the leaker or authorized the leak.