A different view

$tate Department's Benjamin Franklin Award

Why they call it the Ben Franklin Award.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is supposed to announce a new award to honor a company, academic institution or other nongovernmental agency that does the most to stem the bleeding of the deeply wounded US reputation overseas, according to the Washington Post. The award is to be called the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy.

They blame the downhill slide of the US reputation on the Iraq war fiasco. But I think ridiculing "Old Europeans" like Germany and France, antagonizing Russia, ridiculous policy towards the island of Cuba, threatening Turkey and Pakistan, legalizing torture, and throwing out the Geneva Conventions might have something to do with it.

So instead of actually doing things that better the government's reputation, they've created a coalition of public relations companies to artificially pump it up. I guess Karen Hughes just found the job too hard.

They'd better add lots of Benjamin Franklins ($100 bills) to the award. Because I can't see this administration's reputation getting better in the next two years. Having an ethnocentric president and a vice-president that takes joy in shooting sitting ducks (or pheasants) means little chance of changing course now.

In other news Rice announced Zalmay Khalilzad to serve as America's Ambassador to the United Nations. He actually seems like a good choice, but I'm still waiting to hear what the move of Negroponte, who was for terrorism before he was against it, to State makes.

posted by don1one @ 2:37 PM