While (and I use this term quite loosely) researching my previous post on Obama, China, and the vast media conspiracy against media’s poor coverage of his recent trip, I ran across the U.S. Embassy/Beijing’s website.  Take a look at this screenshot of the English-language version of the home page:

This is sad — I know grade school kids who could produce better code than this (full disclosure:  I sure as hell couldn’t).  More importantly, reading this is likely to convince Chinese that the United States is hopelessly boring and backwards.

To be fair, I’m not sure if this is true of the Mandarin version of this site, given that I don’t read Mandarin. But given the fact that its looks to be different, I’m guessing — given the Great Firewall — it’s even more anodyne. And as far as I can tell, there’s no Cantonese version.  I guess the assumption is that everyone reads Mandarin.

Let me offer one example.  There was a lot of snarky commentary in the U.S. media about the Shanghai town hall and the fact that it wasn’t shown throughout China.  Well guess where else Chinese can’t see it?  Yep.  The Embassy Beijing site has no video.  No link to video.  Not even a photo.  Only the text.

Sometime the page is so bad that it borders on the comical (and potentially, at least to the prickly Chinese, offensive).  Here’s a shot of one small part of the English-language version of the home page — it’s part of a list of “warden messages,” which basically are travel warnings for U.S. citizens:

Whoops.

There are supposed to be two separate travel warnings — one on security measures in the lead-up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and one on concerns about reports of pneumonic plague.  But somehow somebody conflated them.  So now October 1 is the National Day Holiday Plague.

Please explain this to me.  Shouldn’t we want to make the United States look interesting and exciting?  And make the presentation of that information eye-catching?  It’s great that the State Department website is all glam and web 2.0 and everything, but if this is what our embassy in Beijing is doing, then the main targets of our public diplomacy  — the Chinese people  — aren’t really getting the message.

For what it’s worth, Embassy Beijing site appears to be the exception, not the rule.  Home pages for the U.S. embassies in Italy, India, and even Papua New Guinea have better content, are better designed, and incorporate social media. In fact, even the Shanghai consulate has a better site (including photos and links to the video of the Shanghai town hall meeting).

The new U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman seems to understand the importance of the intertubes — it was he, after all, who posed the Great Firewall question to Obama during the Shanghai town hall.  here’s hoping that he takes a minute to tell his staff to fix this mess.

(By the way, I also checked out the English-language home page for the Chinese Embassy in D.C., and it’s just as bad.  But that’s certainly no excuse for the USG’s terrible presentation and content.)

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When the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced this morning that it was awarding President Barack Obama the Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” Obama became only the third sitting president to receive the honor.  The other two were Woodrow Wilson, who received the honor in 1920 for his futile efforts to establish the League of Nations, and to Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 for his negotiating peace between Russia and Japan.

Only nine months into his administration, Obama apparently won the Prize for his tone in reaching out to Muslims, exemplified in his ground breaking speech delivered in Cairo earlier this year; his urging to the international community to address pressing global problems such as climate change and the reduction of nuclear weapons, when he recently addressed the UN General Assembly.

But those are as much aspirations as achievements; no one can argue that Obama won because of anything he’s done.  In fact, as Charlie noted on Twitter, it would be a mistake to think Obama got it just because he wasn’t Bush (though let’s not kid ourselves — that most definitely was part of Committee’s thinking).  It’s more accurate to say that Obama is being honored for turning the supertanker, so to speak — moving the United States away from the disruptive role it played in world politics and back toward its more traditional role as leader and partner.

Now, as the old saying goes, the proof will be in the pudding.  The pressure on Obama to deliver on Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East peace, climate change, and nonproliferation has just gotten significantly — perhaps exponentially — greater.  And then there is that sticky issue of human rights, which seems to have taken a back seat to realism in this administration.  More to come on that last point later.

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David Brooks shares my concern over the Administration’s disinclination to embrace stronger rhetoric on democracy promotion:

The big retreat to realism concerns democracy promotion. The Bush administration tried to promote democracy, even at the expense of stability. That proved unworkable.

But many of us hoped that Obama would put a gradual, bottom-up democracy-building initiative at the heart of his approach. This effort would begin with projects to create honest cops and independent judges so local citizens could get justice. It would make space for civic organizations and democratic activists. It would include clear statements so the world understands that the U.S. is not in bed with the tired old Arab autocrats.

There was a democracy-promotion section to the speech, and given the struggle behind it, maybe we should be grateful it was there at all. But it was stilted and abstract — the sort of prose you get after an unresolved internal debate. The president didn’t really champion democratic institutions. He said that governments “should reflect the will of the people” and that citizens should “have a say” in how they are governed.

Obama didn’t describe how a democratic Iraq could influence the region. He seems to have largely given up on democracy promotion in Egypt.

Larry Diamond of Stanford liked the Cairo speech but pointed out that Obama delivered it in a country where an aging dictator is passing power to his son, where the country is crumbling to dust because of autocracy and stagnation. The administration seems to accept this. Meanwhile, as The Washington Post noted, it’s slashing aid to Egypt’s democratic activists.

All true.  I would add, however, that it’s not yet clear whether this is a product of unbalanced staff work, Obama’s personal convictions, or both.  Certainly Obama’s comments to Muslim journalists were a more rigorous assertion of the importance of democracy and human rights.  But I also would note that Obama hasn’t hesitated to rework remarks if he doesn’t like what he’s been given.

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Our friends over at Dipnote have your complete Hillary awesomeness coverage, including links to the YouTube videos:

Gotta say that Hillary doesn’t exactly look at home, does she?  Most honest moment:  “When the President asked me to be Secretary of State, I was very surprised.”  But she does a pretty good job of hangin’ with the kids, and I really liked her discussion of what it’s like to lose — in a new democracy like Indonesia, her point is an important one.

Kudos to the one interviewer who asked her perspective on U.S. relations with Muslim countries, what it was like to support Obama after opposing him, and what she would say to Indonesians who are angry about “U.S. policy toward the Middle East.”

In all seriousness, this isn’t a bad bit of public diplomacy — appear on a program popular with young Indonesians and talk about the importance of good U.S-Indonesian relations, in the process using your own experiences to explain the relevance of the American experience to what is happening there.

Of course, as Marc Lynch has noted, public relations blitzes, should be only one very small part of U.S. public diplomacy.  But between this and Obama’s interview with Al Arabiya, it’s pretty clear that the new Administration gets it.  Now all they need to do is appoint an Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs that can make “smart power” more than a few television appearances..

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. . .Badminton is to U.S.-Iran relations?

Badminton?  Really?

Yes, really:

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs will send a delegation of 12 Americans, including eight female athletes, coaches, and managers representing USA Badminton, to Tehran, Iran, from February 3-9th. The team will compete in the Fajr International Badminton Tournament at the invitation of the Iranian Badminton Federation.

Celebrating its 19th year, the Fajr Tournament is a respected international badminton event and an opportunity to compete against talented teams from many countries, including Iran. Teams representing 16 countries plan to compete in the Iranian tournament, scheduled for February 5-8th. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and USA Badminton look forward to hosting the Iranian Badminton Federation for the U.S. Open in July.

This visit is part of our people-to-people exchanges with Iran. Since 2006, the U.S. Department of State has included Iranians in a range of educational, professional, and cultural exchange programs. In the past two years, over 250 Iranians, including artists, athletes, and medical professionals, have participated in exchange programs in the United States. Through its Sports United program, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has brought the Iranian National Teams for Basketball, Water Polo, Weightlifting, and members of the men’s and women’s National Table Tennis teams to the United States. The U.S. Department of State also sent 20 members of USA Wrestling to Iran to compete in the prestigious Takhti Cup in January 2007.

Okay, maybe not.  Before you get all excited, keep in mind a couple of things.

First, this has to have been in development for a while.  It’s just too soon after the start of the Obama Administration for Hillary’s team to have put this together.  And as the release itself notes, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (which is part of what’s left from the destruction of USIA by Jesse Helms) has been putting these kinds of trips together for a while now.

Second, Iran is not China in the final throes of the Cultural Revolution.  No matter what you may think of the Iranian government, civil society does exist, and media have reported extensively on conditions inside the country.

Third, this is not going to get the kind of rapturous media coverage that “ping pong diplomacy” received nearly forty years ago.  If they’re lucky, it may get a late-night slot on ESPN6.

Fourth and most importantly, as my wife Molly would note, badminton seriously kicks ping pong’s ass.

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Interesting — Dipnote, one of my favorite targets, just did a series of new tweets, timed to the moment at the end of Obama’s speech.  Perhaps this will mark the beginning of an Administration truly committed to new media.

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Last week I aired my complaint about the State Department’s Dipnote blog. A commenter wrote “I don’t think it’s that bad, but it’s definitely not ‘edgy.’” OK. But I want the State Department to do so much more with these powerful online megaphones.

Think about the “Obama is a ‘House Negro’” comment from Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri the other day. The comment tore up the political blogosphere. Observers suggested the comment exposes a flaw in Al Qaeda strategy since the racism of the comment could hurt AQ in part of the world it is counting on for growth (Sudan, Kenya, etc.)

Furthermore, Spencer Ackerman writes:

With an American president as loathed as George W. Bush around the world, it’s easy for Al Qaeda to portray the U.S. as venal and stupid and brutish as he’s proven. Obama complicates the narrative significantly: the very color of his skin, precisely what Al Qaeda mocks, symbolizes America’s willingness to change. That’s exactly what Al Qaeda fears most.

Ilan Goldberg adds:

[AQ] paints the United States as an evil empire that oppresses its own minorities and has little regard for the rest of the world. Al Qaeda uses these types of narratives to raise funds and recruit. [snip] The election of the first African American President, one with a Muslim father, flies in the face of this narrative. It shows America as an open and tolerant society - not the oppressive empire Al Qaeda would like to portray.

People… these are the moments “public diplomacy” is made for. Zawahiri has served up a giant softball and all we have to do is jack it out of the park. Matt Armstrong makes the case here.

So, I cover my eyes, click on the link to Dipnote, peak out between my fingers, and see this: And Twitter That: Public Diplomacy in Moldova. Hmmm…

To be fair… the newest post on DipNote is from Mark Lagon (one of the highest ranking people I have seen post on DipNote). And he covers a very serious topic: Human Trafficking in the Middle East.

But still….

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I love it when U.S. resources and technology are put to use for the greater good.

The USS Kearsarge is an amphibious assault ship which has supported U.S. Marines in combat in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. The ship was the main platform used for the 1995 rescue of Captain Scott O’Grady after he was shot down over Bosnia.

But the Kearsarge’s current mission is quite different. As part of the Pentagon’s Operation Continuing Promise, the ship is on a four month tour of Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana where it is providing humanitarian relief. Instead of its usual 2,000 Marines, the USS Kearsarge is carrying hundreds of medical and construction specialists.

“Kearsarge’s mission is to conduct civil-military operations including humanitarian and civic assistance, as well as veterinary, medical, dental and civil engineering support to six partner nations and to send a strong message of United States compassion, support and commitment to Central and South America and the Caribbean,” says the U.S. Navy.

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So what do you think? Is this is a good use of U.S. military resources? Will the mission build goodwill in the region or is it just an empty gesture?

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I have found this blog’s Bizarro, its Spock with a beard:  the State Department’s blog.  Believe it or not, it’s called Dipnote.

Heh.

I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

Is Foggy Bottom completely lacking in irony?

The main problem with Dipnote is that it’s boring, boring, boring, boring.  Watching paint dry is more interesting boring.  Ferris Bueller’s teacher droning on and on is better boring.  PTA meeting is less torture boring.  Tax audit is more fun boring.

Sorry, thought I was in one of those Yoplait commercials there for a second.

Almost none of Dipnote’s features are interesting or revealing (except in the sense that it shows the degree to which the Department can grind the originality out of anything).  I’m guessing that the mandarins at State have put so many clearance filters on this thing, that almost nothing of any value can get through.

Earlier this week, as Russia was pounding Georgia and Dubya was ogling volleyball babes visiting Beijing, Dipnote led with. . .wait for it. . .a story entitled “Youth Questions Lead to Environmental Action.”

Today is International Youth Day, and this year’s theme is appropriately titled, “Youth and Climate Change: A Time for Action.”

A few weeks ago the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science, Claudia A. McMurray, spoke to a group of about 400 high school students. These kids were from a number of different countries, as well as throughout the United States, and were one of several groups this summer that have come to the State Department to hear policy speeches on the U.S. government’s top issues. Assistant Secretary McMurray highlighted our Bureau’s work on climate change, illegal wildlife trafficking and illegal logging. She spoke about the U.S. commitment to developing a global solution to climate change that is both environmentally effective and economically sustainable, an agreement that would include participation from all major economies, including the United States.

That’s right:  to the State Department, having an Assistant Secretary talk to high schoolers is considered action on climate change.  Whoa.  What risk takers.

Those poor, poor kids.  They may never hear the words “State Department” again without screaming.

So what exactly does State think they’re accomplishing here?  The material is virtually unreadable.  Most of the posts appear to have been written by interns, fellows and junior public diplomacy officers (although, to be fair, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Sean McCormick has put his name on a few pieces).  About a third are merely a rehash of The Condi’s statements and op-eds. And almost all the comments come from about a dozen regulars, most of whom are Americans. And some of the commenters would be regarded as trolls on any other site.

It’s not really clear who their audience is, why they’re writing, or what they think they’re accomplishing.  I presume this must be a public diplomacy initiative, since it is still illegal for the U.S. Government to disseminate its “propaganda” domestically.  Yet they don’t seem to be reaching very many people (or at least they’re not showing up on Technorati or Google Analytics — something they might want to try to fix).

The posts are all over the place, displaying no common viewpoint or perspective, except maybe “look at this nice thing the State Department is doing.” That’s too bad, because I think there is potential value in the Department having a blog.  But it has to be more than this.

And I’m not sure they really understand the purpose of either blogging or social media.  On July 17, Editor-in-Chief, Heath Kern Gibson posted the following:

U.S. State Department and Social Media:  Tell Us What You Think

[snip]

Last year, along with the creation of the Department’s own YouTube Channel, this blog signified the Department’s foray into social media. Since then, the Department has created a Flickr photos profile, began microblogging using Twitter, distributed audio and video podcasts to iTunes and others using ten RSS feeds, and last week, launched the Department’s first official Facebook page. We encourage you to explore these products and let us know how we can better utilize them.

There have been many books and articles written on the relationship between traditional media and foreign policy, with the question often asked as to what degree the news media influences foreign policymakers and vice versa. What has not been discussed as much is the impact of social media on policymaking and the foreign affairs community.

It may not be quite clear yet as to what impact social media will have exactly on foreign policymaking. What is evident, though, is that foreign policy does not operate in a vacuum, and it must incorporate or respond to changes in communications. We are interested in your thoughts on how social media — how these changes in communication — will affect foreign policymaking in the years ahead.

Two words I never thought I’d see together:  diplomats tweeting.

Unfortunately, Gibson almost immediately got smacked down for even posing the question.  Five days later, Gibson’s boss, Assistant Secretary Sean McCormick responded:

Many of you raise an important question about the ability to influence large organizations, in this the case the State Department, through social media. Of course, there are a variety of ways this happens every day on sites not related to the government. We are different because of the relatively closed nature of the policy-making process (this applies across different administrations) so we acknowledge our limits up front. What that does not mean, however, is that you or we should accept those limits as immutable. One way in which I hope this blog evolves to involve you more is in bringing to our attention events (breaking or slowly unfolding). When we receive such information, it is my hope that we can internalize, analyze, and, when possible, act on the information. We are a ways from that model now, but over time culture changes. When I refer to culture in this case, I mean the State Department. It is an inherently conservative (and by that I mean slow to accept and implement change) culture. In less than a year, though, I see change with more posters coming forward to us with material they want to share with you.

I will work with you on the flip side of the equation, in which your feedback or suggestions make their way in to our decision-making processes. I’m reading a great book now, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies . While the book is directed at use of social technologies in business, I can see some parallels on which we can draw, especially in modifying internal processes.

In other words, don’t get your hopes up — nothing in this building is going to change anytime soon.  And if you want it to change, it’s your responsibility to push us to change, because we won’t do it on our own.

That does not bode well for either the future of this blog or the ability of the Department to respond to evolving technology.  Good luck, Mr. Gibson.  You’re going to need it.

Photos:  Wikipedia, via a GNU Free Documentation License

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One of my goals for this blog is to start a discussion on whether the rapid evolution in technology has had an impact on the practice of foreign policy. It should be an interesting topic, given the U.S. Government’s absolutely inept response to emerging trends like email, podcasting, and oh, I don’t know, the wheel.

Let me be clear:  I’m not an expert on either technology or security.  But this is too important an issue not to touch upon.  Furthermore, it’s is not a partisan issue:  modernizing our foreign policy infrastructure should be something that both McCain and Obama should agree on.  Then again, given McCain’s own fear of/wonder at the intertubes, I may be wrong.

There are two problems.  The first is that the State Department and other government agencies are not equipped to adapt quickly to emerging technologies.  If you’ve never been to the State Department, much less worked there, then you probably don’t know that it’s notoriously behind the times.  Part of the problem is security — they’re still coming to terms with how to manage classified data.  Another factor is that, as far as I know, the foreign service does not include awareness of technology in its hiring criteria.  A third issue is that the government can’t compete with the private sector in terms of attracting the talent it needs to stay close to the curve, much less ahead of it.

But those issues don’t tell the full story.   When I arrived at State ten years ago, they were still getting around to replacing the Wang terminals they had bought in the early 80s. For those not in the know, Wang was an early leader in PC technology that used its own OS.

Although it was in many ways more sophisticated than the IBM PC, the Wang’s inability to run MS-DOS meant that it quickly lost market share and eventually went out of business — leaving behind thousands of machines in the Department.  The fact that it took the Department nearly ten years to replace them tells you enough about the internal challenges.  I’m guessing things have gotten better since then, but during a recent visit to the Department, I think saw a Wang terminal sitting in a corner.

The second problem is that many people currently responsible for managing our foreign policy don’t “get” technology any better than John McCain does.  Before I worked at State, I was at a small NGO with about twelve staff.  We had Windows, and everybody taught themselves how to use it.  When State made the transition from Wang to Windows, all Department staff were required to go to the Foreign Service Institute to learn how to use it.

Now we’re not talking rocket science here.  Windows, Word, and Excel are fairly intuitive.  And frankly, I knew more about them than the guy teaching us.  Yet in my class, the only people who had had any experience with what by then already was a ubiquitous system were the ones who had had other jobs before coming to State.  The foreign service officers were lost.  WYSWIG mystified them.  And like many people confronted with something new, their response was largely hostile.

But this isn’t just a question of computers, or even of individual capabilities.  I don’t mean to pick on FSOs.  Just look at the government’s efforts to create satellite teevee networks.  Al Hurrah’s incompetence has gotten the most attention lately, but it’s not like they’re the only problem station:  TV Marti, the US effort to broadcast to Cuba, has been a joke for decades.

Furthermore, the Department still doesn’t know how to operate in internet time.  Its clearance process, created for the drafting of cables to far-off posts, can take so long and be so ponderous that it makes it difficult to draft press guidance or formal responses.  In addition, the clearance process favors those willing to play dirty:  if you’re trying to get language cleared for the spokesperson before his 12:00 briefing, and it’s 11:45 and the Turkey desk won’t clear your draft, you have two choices:  cave and go with their language, or fight and get the spokesperson angry at you.  It’s a no-win situation and favors those who want to play it safe.

When it comes to social media, things are even worse.  You may have heard that the CIA regards use of everything from Facebook to World of Warcraft as disqualification for employment in the clandestine service.  And there are few blogs more lame than Dipnote, which I keep on my blogroll largely out of a mix of pity and masochism.

In other words, our foreign policy apparatus continues to display the same combination of hostility towards and incomprehension of technology that characterizes much of the rest of the government. Let me put it another way: Were Apple to make one of their “I’m a Mac” commercials about State, the PC character would be played by John McCain.

What do you think?  Please share your observations in the comment section below.  And while you’re thinking, here’s a hilarious iPhone parody from E! Television’s The Soup.  It’s not really germane to the topic — except to bet that State and CIA probably don’t allow their employees to use iPhones — but hey, it made me laugh.  Enjoy….

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After my last post on third parties, I couldn’t help but go back and look at Mike Gravel’s (in)famous YouTube cover of the Beatles’ Helter Skelter. If you missed it back in April, take a moment to sit back and enjoy a short ride on the crazy train.

That has to be the strangest campaign commercial ever made.  But hey — our government has produced even stranger stuff.  Maybe President Obama could choose Gravel as his Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy….

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Maybe this is why Jesse Helms hated USIA so much….

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Jesse Helms died today.  I want to offer his family my condolences.

I know a lot of other bloggers are gloating over this.  I don’t plan on doing that.

But not gloating doesn’t mean that we should pretend to honor his legacy.  Certainly, Senator Helms will be remembered as one of the most destructive and toxic Senators in the history of the Republic.  His retrograde stance on civil rights, his notorious “you lost your job because of a quota” ad, his obstructionist micromanagement of foreign policy in the Clinton years, his abuse of Senatorial privilege, and his attacks on public funding of the arts are only the short list — basically what I remember off the top of my head.

I never met Senator Helms, but I dealt extensively with his staff.  I would like to offer three observations regarding his time in office — one good, one bad, and one mixed.

Observation one:  Senator Helms was actually quite good on certain human rights questions, particularly those regarding China and Cuba.  As Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and other groups can tell you, when it came to those countries, no Senator was a stronger advocate.  No Senator spoke out more frequently or more passionately for dissidents and others jailed unfairly.  To be clear, he was completely inconsistent, never applying a similar standard to say, Mexico, Zaire, or other U.S. friends.  But on China and Cuba, no one was better.  To paraphrase Roosevelt, he may have been a bastard, but he was our bastard.

Observation two:  it’s hard picking the worst thing Senator Helms ever did, but one that should rank in the top five — one that most people overlook — is his willful destruction of the United States Information Agency.  Today, almost everyone recognizes that the United States is woefully unprepared to win over hearts and minds in the Arab world. (For more on the challenges facing U.S. public diplomacy, check out two blogs that do a terrific job of covering it regularly: Abu Aardvark and Mountain Runner).  What most people don’t know is that Jesse Helms is one of the main reasons we’re in this mess.  In the late 90s, Helms forced the Clinton Administration to dismantle USIA.  Actually, he gave Clinton a choice:  USIA or USAID, and the Administration chose USIA.

Before USIA was folded into State, USIA personnel had operated separately from State both here in D.C. and abroad.  That meant that USIA country directors (known as Public Affairs Officers or PAOs) headed their own offices in foreign capitals (usually called American Centers and housed, unlike embassies, in office buildings in or around the center of the city).  They were not completely independent of the Embassy/Ambassador, but they did have a lot of leeway to chart their own course.

In my travels overseas, I always make an effort to meet with PAOs, as I find them, even today, to be fonts of information that second and third secretaries — cloistered behind the walls of the fortress embassy — could almost never match.  PAOs often walked freely around the city, taking advantage of incredibly talented local staff who knew all the right people — including dissidents.

All that has changed as a result of the “merger” (and to be fair, the 1998 Nairobi and Dar embassy bombings).  I was in the State Department at the time.  In fact, I represented my bureau (Democracy, Human Rights and Labor), in a department-wide working group that was responsible for deciding how best to “integrate” USIA personnel into State.  What in fact happened was a scramble to acquire the staff and financial resources USIA represented; in the process, the public diplomacy process was largely eviscerated.  Public diplomacy personnel in DC were used for whatever was necessary in each the bureau; public diplomacy became an adjunct to other bureau concerns.  PAOs came under the thumb of Ambassadors.  As a result of the bombings (and 9/11), many former USIA staff were moved into the Embassy compounds, and the U.S. closed many American Centers and Libraries.  The director of USIA became Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, which in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations has been a revolving door, usually given as a reward to those too burned out to keep working in the White House (see Evelyn Lieberman and Karen Hughes).

Not all of this can be laid at the feet of Senator Helms.  Certainly the cowardice of the Clinton Administration played a role, as did the perception that the United States didn’t “need” public diplomacy after the end of history.  The triumph at embassies of security over outreach didn’t help; neither did the fact that the merger was viewed by a resource-starved State Department as little more than an opportunity for plunder.

Today, we’re picking up the pieces.  Almost everyone thinks we need to reestablish USIA as a separate agency.  That will take millions of dollars and innumerable years.  What can’t be recovered is much of the institutional memory.  And most of this disaster is the direct result of Senator Helms’ myopic view of foreign policy.

Observation three: Senator Helms may have passed away, but his legacy will live on through the many people who worked for him over the years.  Many are in the current Administration.  They represent the next generaton of neocons (and paleocons).  President Bush’s current chief speechwriter, Marc Thiessen, was for many years Senator Helms’ spokesman (and one of the most powerful staffers on Capitol Hill).  Before working for the President, Marc held the same job for Donald Rumsfeld.  Roger Noriega, Helms’ Latin Americanist (and the chief architect of the Helms-Burton act), served as U.S. Ambassador to the OAS and as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.  Mark Lagon is currently a U.S. Ambassador, heading the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.  Before that, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations.

Over the years, I’ve dealt with all three, and have found them smart, likable and formidable opponents.  Marc and Roger were part of the U.S. delegation to the ICC talks in Rome in 1998, and we battled regularly.  I’ve found Mark to be one of the more effective officials at State, even when I’ve disagreed with him.

They represent only three examples — I’m sure there are more.  But you can bet that they and others will continue to implement the Senator’s vision long after his death.  And that doesn’t even take into account those like John Bolton who, while never working directly for the Senator, have assumed his ideological mantle.

So Senator Helms is dead.  Long will live his legacy, unfortunately mostly for ill.

Edit:  I had no idea how big the photo was — I took it out.  It was ridiculous.

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