How's that "Freedom Agenda" going? Foreign Policy notes that according to the State Department's own website Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, has all but given up speaking to, well, the public. While she made an average of 5.5 public speaking appearances in 2005, this year she's averaging just 1.5 speeches or op-eds a month.
Still more remarkably, according to the State Department's list of what one presumes to be Ms Hughes' mot important pronouncements, 75% of her speeches and articles have been delivered or published inside the United States. Her overseas engagements have been limited to an op-ed in the Times of India and a brief speech in Bombay at a lunch hosted by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.
Some (eg, the redoubtable Mr Larison) will be reassured by this. Others may be reminded that a famous (and perhaps, by now, cliched?) Texas phrase might sum up his administration's approach to its stated goals in this area: All Hat and No Cattle.
PS: It is of course possible that Ms Hughes' silence does advance the President's ambitions in so much as when she does speak she routinely makes herself - and by extension her President and, I fear, her country - ridiculous. Perhaps she is merely following the old principle: First, Do No Harm. If so, it would be pleasant if that attitude were extended to other parts of the administration...
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