Gonzales pick won't help U.S. image efforts

[struggle4progress]

Wednesday, January 05, 2005
David Sarasohn

The question is, in international image terms, just how much a tsunami can wash away. <snip>

But at the same time the United States is hoping to brush up its image in Bali, it's complicating that effort back in Washington. Worldwide, and throughout the Muslim nations, people who might admire the U.S. relief effort might also notice the appointment of an attorney general who dismissed the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete."

It's one thing not to let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. It's harder to expect the world to admire your right hand and completely ignore your left hand, especially when it thinks your left hand is torturing somebody. <snip>

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