Karen's world

U.S. Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and serial B.S. artist, Karen Hughes, was in Indonesia yesterday to speak with University students about American foreign policy. Hughes, shown here lying to a little girl (clue: her mouth is open), was raked over the coals by several of the young women in attendance. Photo courtesy of the Washington Post.

And this isn't the first time Hughes has been caught schilling shite. The women she met in Turkey had an earful for her too:

"War makes the rights of women completely erased, and poverty comes after war -- and women pay the price," said Fatma Nevin Vargun, a Kurdish women's rights activist."

So who is Karen Hughes?

[click "Read on, MacDuff!" to continue reading]

Laura Flanders knows. Hughes was among the many "Bushwomen" featured in her book, last year. Here is an excerpt from a Democracy Now interview about the book:

LAURA FLANDERS: [Karen Hughes] grew up -- and we heard that she was an army brat. Not quite, again, the story that you imagine of being dragged from place to place. Sure enough she did stay a lot of time in different bases. But her father was one of the top people in the Panama Canal Zone, ultimately the last Governor. And he was the man whose job it became to pull down the U.S. Flag. And as you recall or have read, you're so young, the 1970's fight, the Panama Canal was the fight in the Republican party, the issue against which Republicans campaigned against Jimmy Carter, that he was going to sign a pact that would ultimately hand over power of the canal to the Panamanian people. That was the dividing line political issue in that election. Her father was deeply involved in the sense that he was the man who ultimately had to pull down that flag, a sign of tremendous ignominy. She spent many years in the Panama Canal Zone, a very segregated place. I think she takes these issues of American empire very personally.
AMY GOODMAN: You also say Karen Hughes says she would have loved to do PR for Exxon after the Exxon Valdez.
LAURA FLANDERS: I found that quote. I thought it was worth repeating. She’s a PR person. She sees it as war. She says I look at PR as a war game. And she was asked, you know, are there any PR campaigns you wish you had in your contract. She said she would have liked to have represented Exxon after the Exxon Valdez spill. So, I think she found the right job.

Of course, you're really in trouble when Tucker Carlson thinks you're full of shite:

"I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness."

Yes, Karen's world is a very cynical one indeed.