Politics and Press

Karen Hughes and Public Diplomacy

Back from two weeks in Europe I was amazed to see our under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy doing a rant on Hardball with Chris Matthews. There is something totally weird about someone in charge of public diplomacy shrieking about the need to support the concept of torturing people. But that is what Karen Hughes did – on the day that Canada released a report describing our having sent an innocent man to Syria to be tortured for information that he obviously did not have. Her style was similar to that of Nancy Grace, the nutty lawyer who convicts people on TV: shrill, arrogant and naïve. For this kind of nonsense to come from our head of public diplomacy is more sad than ironic.