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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (12569)	2/17/2006 8:39:25 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541340

No idea - but I heard some feedback on the bureau in the State Department that used to be part of the US Information Agency (that I worked for overseas). That bureau is responsible for generating the products and programs that embassy staff use overseas in public diplomacy programs. The short version is that Karen Hughes means well and seems to be a nice person, but she is clueless and ineffectual. The bureau itself is a mess. And this is four years after 9/11 when a deliberate decision was made to ratchet up our public diplomacy work. I guess more and more the initiative is going over to the Pentagon but their propaganda stuff sucks even worse. The military mindset is to recite clear agendas in crisp martial fashion so the troops will understand and say "Yes, sir!" on cue. Crafting a national image among populations in developing countries is a whole other universe. (FWIW, the info above came from a lifelong Republican who is not a Bush fan but has no particular axe to grind; he just knows a helluva lot about what works in a government agency and what doesn't.)