Envoy Blasted for Iraq Policy Comments (arrogance and stupidity) - AP

[Eugene]

Envoy Blasted for Iraq Policy Comments
By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
3:29 AM PDT, October 28, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Alberto Fernandez is one of the most recognized U.S.
officials in the Middle East thanks to his frequent appearances on Arab
satellite stations and his candid approach to selling America's side
of the story. But the Cuban-born fluent Arabic speaker was barely known
in the United States until recent remarks he made calling Washington's
Iraq policies arrogant and stupid.

His comments infuriated some Bush administration officials and their
supporters, and vividly illustrated the pitfalls of America's battle for
Mideast "hearts and minds," which has U.S. representatives speaking to
one audience and answering to a very different one.

-snip-

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote that if Fernandez represents
the voice of the U.S. in the Mideast, "we need to withdraw all State
Department bureaucrats from the region, find out what else Fernandez and
his Arabic-speaking colleagues have been telling the Arab media, and boot
them off the airwaves. Permanently."

-snip-

Until the controversy, Fernandez's chatty, freewheeling style gave him an
audience far bigger than official spokesmen or Cabinet members, whose remarks
required voice-over translations, could command.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-mideast-u.s.-voice,1,4950102.story

[thepurpose]

1. Asking Michelle Malkin for her opinion makes me thing Fernandez is 100%

correct. If she is against what he stands for then I am behind him even if he works for the Bush administration.

[bahrbearian]

2. Michelle Malkin ,"arrogance" and "stupidity"