Close Encounters of the Karen Hughes Kind

I actually met Karen Hughes, charter member of George W. Bush's inner circle, when I was 19. Then she was Karen Parfitt, a reporter for the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth. In protest against the resumption of draft registration during the Iran Hostage Crisis, I organized a rally marking the 10th anniversary of the killing of four students at Kent State University. I posted fliers all over the metroplex advertising the event and got it announced on KZEW-FM, a local rock station. My efforts proved spectacularly unsuccessful. I showed up and so did my sister and that was it. Two people holding signs make for a rather pitiful demonstration

I had contacted the local media about the event, and Parfitt and a reporter from WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate, showed up with camera crews. Karen Parfitt Hughes turned out to be a snotty, sour prig. She spoke to me rudely and displayed a complete lack of imagination. Had I been a TV reporter covering my rally, I would have seen the humor in the situation of a protest where the reporters outnumber the picketers. I would have done a "what if they held a protest and no one came" story. Not Ms. Parfitt Hughes, who grumbled about how I had wasted her time and stalked off.

Hughes, of course, would become (beside Karl Rove), one of Bush's "brains." She served as Bush's director of communication when he was governor of Texas, then moved with W. to Washington to serve as Bush's counselor for the first two years of his presidency. After returning to Austin, she inflicted "Ten Minutes from Normal," a cloying hagiography-cum-memoir dripping with Bush worship, on an innocent reading public. Then, for reasons known only to Bush, in 2005 the president appointed her undersecretary of state for public diplomacy -- a post she left just this week.

Hughes' job was to improve the image of the United States in the Arab world. Hughes, of course, knew next-to-nothing about Middle Eastern history or politics, or about Islam, nor did she speak Arabic or have any extensive network of personal friends in the region. In other words, she was as qualified for the post as Michael Brown was up to running FEMA.

In a typical Rove-Hughes-Bush take on the world, the White House thought that relations with Arab nations could be tranformed through the magic power of spin. Unfortunately, the American misadventure in Iraq and the continued conflict between Arabs and the U.S.-supported Israelis, intervened and during Hughes tenure the image of America deteriorated in the Arab world.

The bad news about Hughes' second departure from the Bush White House is that she will be returning to Texas. Here, I could make a joke about her exodus raising the IQs of both Washington and the Lone Star state. But unlike Ms. Parfitt Hughes, I am polite, so I'll just say good riddance and good luck.

Michael Phillips is the author of "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001" published in 2006 by The University of Texas Press

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