America's charm offensive

[dArKeR]

US President George W. Bush's controversial appointment of John Bolton, a reputedly abrasive Republican hawk, as US ambassador to the UN sits uneasily alongside the mission statement proclaimed only last week by Karen Hughes, America's new image maker-in-chief.
"There is no more important challenge for our future than the urgent need to foster greater understanding, more respect, and a sense of common interests and ideals among Americans and people of different countries, cultures and faiths," Hughes told the Senate.

She admitted her job as under-secretary of state for public diplomacy would be difficult. But she said the US' aim was to reach out to other countries rather than confront them.

"The mission of public diplomacy is to engage, inform and help others understand our policies. I am mindful that before we seek to be understood, we must first work to understand ... But I am confident our ideals will prevail," she said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/08/06/2003266662

[existentialist]

1. This rhetoric

just rings so pathetically empty to anyone who is paying the least attention. The nomination of John Bolton is the most recent significant action to display the true character of the administration, but not the only one, and probably not even the most egregious.

I mean what's appointing a fact challenged bully as a diplomat compared to starting a war based on lies?