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New York Daily News - October 2, 2005
Turning a deaf ear:
Hughes seems clueless on a listening tour
of Middle East
by Lenore Skenazy
Not only is it a small world, after all - most of it sounds like a bunch of Democrats.
That's what Karen Hughes may have discovered last week on her "listening tour" of the Middle East. (Apparently, no self-respecting female politician can go on a "lecture tour" anymore. Post-Hillary they're always "listening.")
Dispatched by President Bush to spread the good news about his policies, Hughes, the newly minted undersecretary of state for public diplomacy (i.e., flack) met with groups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. All of these audiences listened politely to her message which was, basically, that the President knows what he's doing, had to do what he has done and is, in fact, making the world a better, safer place.
To which most of the attendees interviewed afterward replied (in their respective languages): Puh-lease!
Now, when Bush gets that kind of reaction here in America, his minions are quick to dismiss it as the product of raging liberals, left-wing media manipulators or some kind of MoveOn/Michael Moore cabal. But when this criticism arises unprompted, halfway around the world, it should give the administration pause.
What Hughes heard was not partisan politics. Howard Dean wasn't lurking in a burka. Most of the Middle Easterners Hughes met wouldn't know a Zogby Poll from an onion roll. They were simply telling it the way they see it. And that happens to be the way an increasing majority of Americans - not just Democrats - see it, too. To wit:
"They want to stop terrorism but they are helping it to spread," said an American University student to the Christian Science Monitor after Hughes' talk in Cairo.
"I am anti-war and anti-violence," a woman at the Women's Research Center at Ankara University told The Associated Press. "I am not anti-American."
An engineer in Cairo was quoted as saying that what upsets him is the "hypocrisy" of fighting for democracy in Iraq while maintaining strong ties to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
Fully 63% of Americans now believe Bush is making a mess of Iraq, a figure that was quoted in an Al Jazeera TV discussion of Hughes' tour. The panelists were debating whether her visit could change Middle Eastern opinion of the United States. But as one of the commentators noted sagely: Any shift would require a change in policy, not just a change in PR.
The other panelist - an Egyptian editor - insisted that America is just plain evil and nothing it can do will change his opinion.
There may be no way to change the mind of anyone like that. But Hughes could win over a lot of Middle Easterners - and a lot of Middle Westerners, too - if only she and her party stopped turning a deaf ear to the concerns voiced near and far.
When the whole world starts sounding like the Democrats, it would behoove the Republicans to listen.
http://www.nydailynews.com/11-08-2002/news/col/lskenazy/story/351581p-299888c.html
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