SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

For those of you in my Global Communication class, I'm going to be presenting about Karen Hughes, the latest Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy to flee the White House. While she did last longer than most of her predecessors, her time in the position was rocky, to say the least. I knew that I would find some criticism of Hughes because it's impossible to be in politics and not have many enemies. However, I was very disappointed to learn about her efforts at what she called "public diplomacy."

Without giving too much away, how would you react to "listening tours" in which the audience was hand-picked to ensure complacency and appeasement so that when Hughes told a roomful of Saudi women that they should learn to drive in order to "fully participate in society," no one would laugh? Or, when the undersecretary said that Osama bin Laden killed "hundreds of thousands" in gas chambers (in reality, he did give heinous orders that led to the gassing of approximately 1500 humans, which is bad enough that I'm not sure why Hughes felt the need to exaggerate).

Hughes began in journalism, and moved into politics when she helped Bush the Elder get into office. She stuck with the family and has been a long-time confidante of W's, and her loyalty has apparently paid off for her. I guess it doesn't matter that she had no prior international experience, because Public Diplomacy's just like PR, right?

WRONG.

I'm trying to decide what will be worse for our country: leaving that appointment vacant during this tumultuous time, or appointing somebody just as incompetent or worse than Karen Hughes.