Abu Aardvark: Dorrance Smith recess appointment

Remember the small note about Bush making some recess appointments? Seemed pretty fishy. Sure enough, Abu Aardvark fills us in on one of them with, : Dorrance Smith recess appointment

Dorrance Smith has received one of George Bush's precious recess appointments. How exciting!

We now have as Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs a man who is on record as describing (without offering any evidence) al-Jazeera as having 'a working arrangement [with terrorists] that extends beyond a modus vivendi'. It's almost as if the Secretary of Defence specifically wanted to neutralize a potentially effective, reality-based State Department-housed public diplomacy which included an outreach to al-Jazeera.
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Whatever the reason for the recess appointment of a proven incompetent political hack (who evidently couldn't even get through a Republican-controlled Senate) to this crucial position, it's a dark day for America's public diplomacy efforts in the Arab world.

How comforting...