Jewish World Review Nov. 16, 2005 / 14 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766

Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but ...

By Tucker Carlson

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In 1998, I went to a breakfast in Los Angeles where the governor of Texas was speaking. I'd woken up that morning barely aware of George W. Bush. I left the meal impressed by him. Over the next year I wrote several stories about Bush, including a magazine profile that took months to complete.

I flew back and forth to Austin, talked to Bush's friends, family and classmates, took his staff out to dinner. I had several long interviews with Bush himself. Long before the Republican primaries, I became convinced Bush was headed to the White House. At the podium, he was a mediocre speaker, but he was brilliant — Clinton-level good — with individuals. I have never before or since seen a man work a room more effectively. Bush seemed to have great judgment about people.

And for the most part, he did. But I always wondered about Karen Hughes. Hughes, a former local TV reporter from Texas who oversaw media relations in the governor's office and later on the Bush campaign, was one of Bush's closest confidants. I once saw her snap at her boss, right to his face in the most embarrassing possible way. He didn't flinch. Obviously Bush thought so highly of her, he gave her a pass. I have no idea why. Hughes always struck me as not only dishonest, but thoroughly average. Her main contribution to Bush's speeches appeared to be her insistence that the public — formerly known as "Americans" or "voters" or "men and woman" — be always and everywhere referred to as "moms and dads." Every time I heard Bush repeat a talking point that was patronizingly simplistic and dumb, I assumed it was Karen Hughes speaking.

The rest of the story is well known: Despite her limitations, Karen Hughes not only survived the campaign, she moved up to the White House, and remains in the inner ring of Bush's private circle. Not long ago, Bush appointed her Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, our ambassador to the Islamic world. Today, she was in Pakistan handing out aid to earthquake victims.

There aren't yet any detailed reports of what Hughes has said while in Pakistan, so it's hard at this point to criticize her trip. But if her appearances in the region last month are any guide, she's certain to embarrass America.

Hughes went to the Middle East in October on what was billed as "a listening tour." Among the journalists on the trip was ABC's Jonathan Karl, a former print reporter who writes well and takes excellent notes. He later filed a detailed account for the Weekly Standard. Here's a brief excerpt:

"I go as an official of the U.S. government, but I'm also a mom, a working mom," she told reporters on the flight from Washington to Cairo.

To college students in Cairo: "You've heard my title, but that's the fancy stuff. I am really a mom."

"My most important job is mom," she said in an interview with NBC News. "I still have to pinch myself a little when I am sitting in a meeting with the king [of Saudi Arabia] and realize that I'm there representing our country."

At a joint press conference in Turkey: "I am a mom, and I love kids. I love all kids."

It goes on. You get the flavor. By the end of the trip, Hughes had so annoyed a group of Saudi women, they barked at her. So much for winning hearts and minds. G-d knows what she's saying to the Pakistanis right now.

And it matters. In Tuesday's wire service account of Hughes's trip, she is quoted as calling Pakistan "one of America's most loyal partners in the war on terror." For once Hughes is right. Pakistan really matters. Pervez Musharraf, for all his many faults, is a vital bulwark against Islamist parties that would love to control the country and its nuclear weapons. Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, may be riddled with al-Qaida sympathizers, but it still provides us with invaluable information about terrorist threats. We have an interest in courting public opinion in Pakistan.

Maybe the Pakistanis do care that Karen Hughes is a mom. Maybe they are yearning to be lectured at by a humorless kindergarten teacher posing as a high-level diplomat. On the other hand, maybe they're not. It's not a chance we ought to take.