2008

Fred Thompson fired up a convention of Young Republicans, claiming himself the "top target" of Hillary Clinton. (Thompson and Clinton are, I believe, the candidates we'll see on the 2008 ballot. It won't matter to me if I'm wrong, though, because what I'm most sure of at this point is that there won't be anyone worth voting for.)

"I'm getting tired of having to apologize for the United States of America around the world."

Is he getting tired of having to apologize because our current policies are wrong? No.

"I'm tired of other people's perceptions that we need to apologize."

The one issue it seemed he might have had a problem with is that it was recently revealed he'd lobbied Bush 41 on behalf of a pro-abortion group.

The abortion issue is essentially just an emotional smoke screen anyway, since no one with the chance of being president is going to actually make any real moves against it, and Thompson's response was typical GOP: deflection.

"I'd just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing," said Thompson [...] He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.

[...]

"Whatever choice do we have? Mitt Romney has been on both sides of the issue," said Paul Boyd, 26, of Memphis, Tenn. "Rudy Giuliani is 100 percent pro-choice. John McCain, at least for the first four years of the Bush term, was against whatever the president was for. Everybody has their flaws."

Since this wasn't a Religious Right crowd, I'd say his handlers picked the right spot for his first speech after that information made the news. Get him out there immediately making a big positive splash to counter any negative effect of the pro-abortion revelation.

Kevin Fickert, a 22-year-old college student in Los Angeles who originally is from Massachusetts, said he liked Romney's leadership as governor but thinks Thompson has more appeal. "Thompson has this star power about him that I really like," Fickert said.

In a nutshell.

Twit Romney, in the meantime, thinks we should hire a marketing firm to sell ourselves in the Middle East.

"People will give up half a day's salary to get a Coca-Cola in some parts of the world. We market Coke well. We market McDonald's well. We market our rap music, our movies, our jeans," Romney said. "We market everything America sells brilliantly, but when it comes to marketing ourselves and what we stand for, we don't do a very good job of it."

Maybe we don't do it well enough, but if he thinks we haven't been doing it, he hasn't been paying attention.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Congress rushed to restore State Department public diplomacy funding slashed in the era of Jesse Helms and Newt Gingrich. According to a September 2003 General Accounting Office report, public diplomacy monies for the Middle East have increased by 58 percent since 2001. The State Department hired former Madison Avenue executive Charlotte Beers (since departed) to design a comprehensive strategy for marketing the US in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and launched the Arabic-language Radio Sawa and the Farsi-language Radio Farda to beam American pop music and brief newscasts into Middle Eastern households.

According to long-standing theories in the field of public diplomacy, conflicts between the US and foreign countries can be greatly ameliorated if foreign populations can be made to see that Americans are people just like them.

  Middle East Report Online

Now that would be a hard sell even for people who have a clue.

"The Middle East is the Disneyland of sandsurfing."

Hi Magazine, launched by the State Department in 2003.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. --Mark Twain

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.