quote:
And I also agree that the Bush administration should be doing a much better job of making clear our objectives, and quickly deconstructing the disinformation of Muslim extremist rhetoric, and of their willing accomplices, liberal pundits in America and Europe.
While I agree that the US administration (any US administration) needs to be better at getting its message across (the sound bites it gets on al-Jazeera aren't enough) there are two issues:

1. they also need to convince people to actually watch it (following on from my last post);

2. they need to think about the message. I read the article on Negroponte's veto of the UN resolution on Arafat. Irrespective of what you think or don't think of Arafat, as the Palestinian observer pointed out, what kind of message is it that the supposed arbiter or Middle East peace won't condemn an Israeli plan to assassinate or deport an elected Arab leader? Protecting Israel is a central plank in Us foreign policy, and that's fine. But where is the even-handedness? How are people in that region supposed to respect the US over this? Where is the clever diplomacy, the weighed messages?