reflectivepundit

Marketing the American Brand: The Limits of Public Diplomacy

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When Karen Hughes, President Bush’s long-time confidant, resigned as head of the State Department’s public diplomacy section, America’s image abroad and especially in the Arab and Muslim world was still on the downward slide that she had hoped to halt and even reverse when she took the job two years earlier. Just like advertising executive Charlotte Beers and former ambassador Margaret Tutweiler before her, Hughes failed to replace the image of “the ugly American” with a positive brand. While astute in domestic politics, Hughes lacked knowledge of the Middle East, the particular target region of the administration’s efforts in public diplomacy. This showed during her first “listening tour” during several Arab countries, where she was perceived as clueless and patronizing. But even if the job at the Department of State were to be filled with someone familiar with the premier target region of
Washington’s efforts to market the “good America,” it would be next to impossible to succeed. While attractive branding and packaging matters in the marketing of products, it is the content of the box of cereal or wash detergent or whatever that ultimately determines success and failure. Similarly, while so-called strategic communication initiatives, such as Washington officials granting interviews to al-Jazeera and other Arab media, receive attention in the region, ultimately it is U.S. policy that matters, not the rhetoric of public diplomacy vendors.
In other words, as long as U.S. policy in the region remains the same, any successor of Karen Hughes will face a next to impossible task. This is wonderfully expressed in a Slate V animated editorial cartoon by Mark Fiore that depicts the daunting job description for the position vacated by Hughes. Click the following link to watch the clip:

All of this is not to say that the U.S. should forget about public diplomacy. But the same strategies and tactics that were very successful during the Cold War do no longer suffice in the age of instant global communication and world-wide television networks and other global media.

Obama, Clinton, and Columnist Novak

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Robert Novak, the conservative Washington Post columnist and friend of the Bush administration, who published the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to help the White House punish her husband Joe Wilson for not going along with false evidence concerning Saddam Hussein’s efforts to acquire nuclear material, is again in the news. The topic is familiar: dirty tricks. Last week, Novak “reported” under the headline Hillary vs. Obama the following,
“Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.”
Note Novak’s choice of words: Clinton has “agents” working in her campaign--not aides. Of course, “agent” sounds more genuine when you push the notion of a covert operation against the enemy. But contrary to the Plame case, when he blew the cover of a CIA agent, this time around Novak did not out Clinton's “agents.” It seems that Novak and/or like-minded people cooked up this convenient "information" designed to swift-boat the two most viable Democratic candidates into fighting over—well--nothing.
The Obama campaign took Novak’s bait and, as Chris Cillizza writes, “started the melee with a statement from campaign manager David Plouffe demanding that Clinton reveal the information they possessed on the Illinois Senator.” How in heaven could the Obama campaign go for Novak’s ruse clearly designed to pit the two Democrats against each other? By buying and reacting angrily to Novak’s fishy story about dirty linen still under lock in Hillary’s campaign chest, the Obama camp forced Clinton’s aides to deny the charge and prolong the shelf life of Novak’s dirty trick.
Obama and Clinton and Edwards and one or the other Democratic candidate should take a time out and think about the likely consequences of the wounds they inflict on each other. There is a need to debate their differences and similarities, but there is no need whatsoever to do it in ways that provide Republicans now and during the general debate with lethal ammunition. There is little doubt that the same swift boat tactics that drowned John Kerry during the 2004 campaign will be deployed this time around as well. No need for Democrats to react to false swift boat allegations by the Novaks of this world.

Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, and the Word that Rhymes with Rich and Witch

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In 1984, after Geraldine Ferraro became the first female politician to be nominated by a major political party as candidate for the office of vice-president of the United States, she learned a thing or two about gender bias in mass-mediated politics. It wasn’t only her Republican opponent George H.W. Bush who questioned the congress-woman’s foreign policy credentials and his wife Barbara who referred to Mrs. Ferraro with a word that rhymes with rich. Media stars and the rest of the press made comments, asked questions and expressed doubts that revealed deeply-seated gender biases.

Nothing seems to have changed in the nearly 24 years since then. Take Republican Senator John McCain’s reaction when a supporter took a page from Barbara Bush’s 1984 play-book against Geraldine Ferraro in an effort to cut another female candidate—Hillary Clinton—down to size: As reported in the Washington Post, “On Monday night, when a woman at a town hall asked how Republicans could beat Clinton--calling her a word that rhymes with witch--McCain smiled as the crowd laughed and said it was an "’excellent question.’" 1984 all over again. 

Given her experience then, Ferraro is well suited to comment on Hillary Clinton’s treatment during the Philadelphia debate among Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination. This is an excerpt from Mrs. Ferraro’s letter-to-the-editor published in the New York Times a day before tonight’s debate in Las Vegas:

“Watching this debate [in Philadelphia], I saw two hours of Senator Clinton being bombarded with personal attacks, not only by her opponents but also by the moderator Tim Russert. Yes, she’s the Democratic front-runner, and that makes her fair game for challenges on the issues. But when it got so personal that even Bill Richardson, one of her opponents, had to say “Enough,” I had to agree. Barack Obama has said that, when he was attacked for 15 minutes in a prior debate, he didn’t raise his race as an issue. Fifteen minutes is not two hours, though, and I feel sure that, if Senator Obama had been subjected to so sustained an attack, plenty of other people would be talking about racism, even if he wasn’t. But then, as I’ve said before, in this country it’s still O.K. to be sexist, but not to be racist. I’ll be watching the coming candidate debates on CNN, and if the Republican front-runner, Rudolph W. Giuliani, is the sole subject of two hours of personal attacks, I’ll rethink my position. It will help if, next time out, John Edwards and Senator Obama stick to substantive policy disagreements with Senator Clinton. If they can’t, they’ll only prove themselves unworthy of our party’s nomination.”

Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik and 9/11 “Heroism”

By Brigitte L. Nacos
After his indictment for multiple counts of corruption, Bernard Kerik told the press, “My life has been marked by challenge. Whether it was growing up, being a cop, Rikers Island, the New York City Police Department, or the worst challenge, until this time, my challenges during and after 9/11…”  Like his long-time benefactor Rudy Giuliani, New York’s former Correction and Police Commissioner invoked the terrorist attacks in an obvious effort to win the sympathies of people who can be fooled by these self-proclaimed heroes. Since tough cop Kerik drove Rudy Giuliani during his 1993 mayoral campaign, his career blossomed under Rudy’s tutelage. No wonder that they both used 9/11 as spring board to join forces in a lucrative consulting business that was built on their carefully cultivated 9/11 hero status. What was lost in all of this was, of course, that any mayor and any police commissioner of a large city would be expected to manage major crises competently. 

Like his patron Rudy, Kerik sells himself and is sold as a hero and distinguished public servant. On the Kerik Legal Defense Trust web site one of the pages lists all his accomplishments under the header “Heroism & Distinguished Service.” The defense trust was established to “allow Mr. Kerik’s friends and supporters to assist him in defending himself against possible charges that may be brought against him by the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.” The site continues to show Kerik and Giuliani in one of the pictures (see below excerpt from web site).

                                         

A Refresher Course on Basic American Values

By David Epstein

Now this is just too much. Bush gave a speech the other day comparing our present situation to what the US faced prior to World War II and the Cold War. The point was apparently to put pressure on Democrats who are making too much of minor issues like torture and basic civil liberties, denying him the unfettered authority he claims is necessary to fight the Global War On Terror.

We need a history lesson here. In World War II the US fought against totalitarianism and evil with freedom and regard for human life. In the Cold War we fought Socialism and Communism with multiparty democracy and free markets. In both cases we triumphed due to -- *not* despite -- our fundamental values. When we failed to act in accordance with these values, like making pacts with tin-pot third world dictators, evidence shows that we harmed both our cause and our image.

Now Bush wants to fight a war on hate and terror with -- with -- with torture and wiretapping? With extraordinary rendition, unreasonable search and seizure, and late night visits to the hospital bed of a very sick man? By alienating the allies that stood by us during World War II and the Cold War itself, all because they wouldn't believe our *wrong* intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? The effrontery of it all -- the administration violates everything we as Americans hold dear, and then dare to call their opponents unpatriotic.

What Bush and his crew don't understand -- what they seem incapable of comprehending -- is that we win great battles by staying true to what made our country great in the first place. Liberty and open government and checks and balances are not impediments to fighting wars, they are the preconditions for doing it right. An executive branch that walls itself off from all checks on its authority will sooner rather than later make mistake after mistake and fail spectacularly to achieve its goals.

Why did we come to this point? That's actually one the history books will have to sort out. Right now the most likely explanation lies in the fact that key actors in the administration, notable Rove, saw the war on terror first and foremost as a tool for reelection. That meant keeping the public scared about the size and nature of the threat facing us, and above all not allowing another attack within the US. Those were the overriding concerns; civil liberties and our image abroad never even came into the equation.

Whatever the history books say about this, they will point to the last four years as an unmitigated disaster, the moment when we collectively lost our soul and our love of freedom. Whether we can recover from this debacle, only the future will tell.

Giuliani Opposes Medicare, Medicaid and the Veteran's Administration

By David Epstein

It must be tough to be a Republican presidential candidate these days. It used to be that Democrats were hampered by the crazies on the left, while the Republicans were a disciplined machine aiming purely and simply to win elections. Now the opposite is true.

If you want a real shot at the Republican nomination, not only do you have to toe the hard-right line on military issues like the Iraq War and gun control, and assuage the Christian right by pronouncing yourself anti-abortion (even if it means renouncing a political lifetime of taking the opposite position), you have to genuflect to the economic fundamentalists on social issues like health care too.

Rudy Giuliani -- not a dumb guy, which probably makes this all the harder for him -- has addressed the latter issue by taking the neo-Neanderthal line that for the government to take any role whatsoever in health care is "socialized medicine." Which means, one would have to conclude, that he would prefer to roll back such dangerous Commie initiatives as Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA hospital system.

This tactic might just possibly get him enough brownie points to win the Republican nomination, but it has at least two big, big flaws. First, it makes him take positions that are factually incorrect, as in his latest claim that prostate cancer survivor rates are 82% in the US as opposed to 44% in England. This claim has been immediately debunked, both by Krugman in the NYT and Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. In a shorter campaign these types of lies might not catch up to a candidate, but I predict that by the time this long primary season is over Rudy will regret playing fast and loose with the facts.

Second, and even more fundamentally, as health care costs move from being an abstraction to a front-of-the-brain reality for more and more voters, these fulminations against government playing a role in health care just get weaker and weaker. To put it plainly, if the Republicans get all the votes from Americans who worry about "socialized medicine," and the Democrats get all the votes from Americans who think that health insurance is a basic right and the government should play a major role in supplying it, the Dems would win in a landslide.

So Rudy is lying to defend a losing position in the general election. As I said, it must be tough to be a Republican presidential candidate.

Eight Guys Pound Hillary Clinton in Shameful Media Slugfest

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In her column about the latest presidential debate, New York Times columnist Gail Collins writes that “Hillary Clinton stood on a stage for two hours Tuesday night, being yelled at by six men.” She is wrong. She was not only battered by her Democratic rivals but chastised by the supposedly neutral moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert, who set the stage for this disgraceful media slugfest and took part in the rhetorical brawl against Hillary Clinton. The pompous moderator duo carried the ball for many of their colleagues in the media.Tired of the civility displayed during Democratic debates so far, many in the media were eager for conflict and drama. For weeks, especially Senator Obama was lured into getting tough and challenge Senator Clinton, the frontrunner in the polls. He finally took the  bait and promised during an interview with the New York Times a “forceful stand against Clinton.” Unsurprisingly, the Times, the newspaper that fifteen or so years ago dug up the Whitewater non-scandal against presidential candidate Bill Clinton to derail his candidacy, seems now especially eager to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination of her party and the White House. At least for Maureen Dowd the attacks on Clinton were not tough and manly enough; she complained that “Obama whiffed in the debate last night when Brian Williams and Tim Russert teed up the first question for him to take on Hillary…” I watched a different debate in which the opening question to Barack Obama and his answer opened the flood-gates for the males on the stage to use Hillary Clinton as punch-bag. It got so bad that Governor Richardson at one point protested mildly against the close to personal attacks on Senator Clinton before assuring his very different agenda. No wonder that Mrs. Clinton’s debate performance was less sure-footed and less convincing than her previous ones. It will be interesting to see how her media critics spin her performance: after characterizing her as too tough and manly and calculating and tough, it takes some innovative spin to perhaps claim that female are not tough enough under fire and thus not fit for the highest office.