The show must go on...

There's a bit of showmanship to the British political system with the Prime Minister's Q&A session before parliment. The US obviously has no equivalent of that, but occasionally our political acts get a chance to shine.

This article personifies the American politician, in this case Karen Huges.

Indeed, Hughes brought the tactics of a U.S. political campaign to the world of diplomacy, mixing evocative images with simple and sometimes hokey lines -- "I am a mom and I love kids" -- designed to strike an emotional chord with Muslim audiences.

Hughes, assessing the trip for reporters traveling with her, said she was not taken back or surprised by some of the tough criticism of U.S. policy.

"I heard a lot of heartfelt concerns," she said. "I think it is important to talk about those tough issues."

Hughes repeatedly said -- such as three times during a brief interview with the al-Jazeera satellite news network -- that Bush was the "very first president" to support a Palestinian state. Hughes told reporters traveling with her that she was surprised that Bush didn't get more credit in the region for calling for a Palestinian state. But several people who met with Hughes said they consider the Bush administration to be biased in favor of Israel, and they believe that it has done little in five years to support the goal.

Hughes, a former television journalist, also kept an eye on the media images. After a tense confrontation with Turkish women over the Iraq war, for instance, she overrode her security detail to take a stroll through the cobblestone streets of old Ankara. The result was video of her entering stores and greeting shopkeepers, the perfect antidote to the clash that had just occurred.

This is the era of the MBA Presidency. You don't admit errors, nothing is unexpected, and it's all about the song and dance. Stock is up, we have a great future! Let's not talk about Iraq, or what we do in your country, let's focus on how we all love children. Part of it irritates me- you know...that part of me that respects substance over mindless fluff. And yet there is something about seeing a master giving a show... If the Bush administration can work it's wiles on the world the way it did on the American electorate in 2004 we'll get all of our goals with only very vague promises that we'll never have to deliver on anyway. Of course the downside is a few years later people get so tried of our boring shit that we no longer have any credibility. Who knows? Maybe it's good diplomacy...maybe not.

I don't know how Huges's speech flew, but this line is too precious and quotable not to cite:

Abdel-Rahman Rashid, a prominent writer and head of al-Arabiya satellite
network, wrote in the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that, in the
Arab world, the United States "resembles a woman of ill-repute whom everyone
wants to court but only in secret."

Here in America, that's how we think of Congressional lobbyists.