IT SEEMS unfair to single out the hapless Colleen Graffy. America's deputy assistant secretary for public diplomacy is far from being the only official in George Bush's administration who has a tin ear when it comes to—well, to public diplomacy. When three of the Muslim inmates held for years without trial at Guantánamo in Cuba hanged themselves last weekend, she called this “a good PR move”...
Take something that went down well in America—Mr Bush's surprise call this week on the new prime minister of Iraq. Nuri al-Maliki had been building up the elected government's credibility by putting a careful distance between himself and the Americans. The last thing he needs is to look like the superpower's stooge. But he seems to have been given no advance notice of the visit. After Mr Bush was choppered into Baghdad, a bemused Mr Maliki was obliged to stand squirming alongside his beaming visitor, as pictures of president and stooge were flashed unhelpfully to Muslims in Iraq and around the world.
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