The firm of Beers, Tutwiler, and Hughes is not a new law firm moving in to town nor is it an ad agency. It is an association of women who have worked for the United States government in recent years in an effort to improve our relations with the Arab countries. For reasons that are unknown to most civilized people, this administration believes that women will make the best ambassadors to convince the Arabs that we are indeed friends and allies. The jury is out on that point and will probably return a verdict of not in agreement.
The women named in the title are Charlotte Beers, an ad executive from New York, Margaret Tutwiler who is a slow speaking political operative from Alabama, and Karen Hughes who has been described as the other half of George Bush’s brain. The remaining half is occupied of course by Karl Rove.
In recent years during the current administration, it has been decided that these women could make a difference with our friends and enemies in the Arab camp. Charlotte Beers came to Washington and within six months decided that there was nothing she could do under the administration’s present policies and gave up the job in disgust. She returned to New York to continue her work as an advertiser. Margaret Tutwiler, who has no obvious qualifications, took over the job of running the relationship with the Arab countries and must have confused them with her Alabama accent. In any event she threw in the towel after a few months and the Bush people appointed her as an ambassador to some obscure country. Karen Hughes was named early in 2005 as an Under Secretary of State in Condoleeza’s State Department doing the same job. It should be borne in mind that the Under Secretary of State is the third ranking job in the State Department. There is a Secretary of State, followed by the Deputy Director, followed by the Under Secretaries. So the appointment of Ms. Hughes is an important statement. It carries a singular amount of weight by virtue of its title.
When Madame Hughes was appointed as an Under Secretary of State, it was January or February of 2005. She had a son who attended high school in Austin, Texas and who was looking for a college. Now appointment as an Under Secretary of State did not prevent Ms. Hughes from looking for a college for her son. As a matter of fact, Ms. Hughes did not take up the work as an Under Secretary until some time late in the summer of 2005.
When Ms. Hughes finally appeared on the job, she seemed to believe that only a few speeches would be required to turn around our centuries-old relationships with the Arabs. And so it was that Karen Hughes set out to make speeches in what are regarded as friendly Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan. The burden of her speeches was that “I am a mom and I understand people and I love children.” During her speeches to the Arab women, she advised them to get rid of their burkas, the black robes that cover them from head to foot, and free themselves. Ms. Hughes was flabbergasted to learn that the women seemed to enjoy wearing their burkas and at the end she was handed her head by the Arab women attending the conferences. She made only two speeches, in Cairo and in Amman, Jordan, before she abandoned her effort at speech-making to Arab women. That was some time last fall, 2005.
Since that time we have been without an ambassador in charge of repairing relationships with the Arab nations. This is hard to believe, but it is reported by reputable news organizations that Ms. Hughes was on her way to South America recently. I can advise her that there are very few Arabs in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. If she is looking for Arab audiences, she ought to search out meetings in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that embrace the Islamic faith.
The point of this exercise is obvious. We have made a colossal mistake by sending women to explain our position vis-à-vis the Arabs. I have nothing against women; on the contrary I have written several essays in praise of women. But Arab men operate under the Islamic belief that they can have the company of four wives and that if they are killed as martyrs of the Islamic faith, they are entitled to as many as 100 virgins when they reach Paradise. Simply put, the Arab men in charge of the governments there do not take women seriously but rather tend to regard them as items of property.
We failed with Charlotte Beers. We failed with Margaret Tutwiler. And obviously we have failed with Karen Hughes. There was a time when your old essayist was a catcher playing softball and hardball for industrial teams in St. Louis and in the United States Army. If an opposing batter hit fast balls out of the park on two or three occasions, I would never call for a fast ball to him again. He was to be fed curve balls or change-ups or drops. If we apply the same metaphor to the United States government, it would be that the batter would have nothing but fast balls served to him. In our case, the United States government has named three women to that job and all three have struck out monumentally. Yet the Chief Executive, Commander-in-Chief, and currently “chief decider” will admit no mistake in his choice of Karen Hughes and will probably name some other female to be our ambassador to the Arab nations. Does it ever appear to the Bushies that the problem is their policies rather than female speeches? This is a disastrous course. It ranks with our unfortunate entry into Iraq.
Fortunately Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, and Karen Hughes seem to have disappeared. All things being equal, that is a favorable development both here and in the Arab countries. The fact that their faces are missing is an enormous plus. The fact that they were named to an impossible job is something for the current administration to think about.
Now that the firm of Beers, Tutwiler, and Hughes as been disposed of, we can turn our attention to the mother country, that being Great Britain. Almost exactly one year ago, the Prince of Wales, commonly known as Charlie Windsor, married his companion of some thirty-five years. I commented at the time when Charlie married Camilla Parker-Bowles as to whether this was a forced marriage or a marriage of convenience. In an essay at that time, I suggested pregnancy as a possible cause for their engagement. But sources in Buckingham Palace never confirmed my medical thoughts.
In any case, it used to be that every week or so we would get a communication from Charlie, the Prince of Wales, on some daffy subject. For example, late in 2004 before his marriage, one of his secretaries inquired as to whether or not she could seek a promotion or get a raise. Charlie wrote her a scathing letter which appeared in all of the British publications, alleging that she was attempting to become a news reader on television, for which job she was clearly unqualified. In short, if one of Charlie’s secretaries asked for a promotion, she was courting a letter that reflected Charlie’s great disfavor.
None the less, after all of the daffiness that has marked Charlie’s behavior over the recent years, he and Camilla Parker-Bowles were married, and the announcements and letters and speeches suddenly stopped. For a year we have been without any communication from old Charlie. He came to New York during the winter with his new wife but the New York Times reported that they were received with minimum fanfare.
The thing that bothers this old essayist is that Charlie Windsor has disappeared from the news altogether which makes me concerned. His mother has turned 80 this week and presumably, one of these days, she will pass on and Charlie will inherit the throne of England. When he becomes the monarch of all of the English speaking world, are we to expect nothing but silence from the husband of Mrs. Camilla Parker-Bowles? The fact of the matter seems to be that the Prince of Wales, Charlie Windsor, has joined Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, and Karen Hughes as being among the missing.
A third exhibit of missing people has to be Colin Powell. When Colin Powell was the Secretary of State during the first four years of the Bush administration, he apparently did not support the idea of invading Iraq but he kept his thoughts to himself. This is entirely consistent with how generals are made. Generals do not get paid to think; they get paid to go along with what politicians have decided that they must do. Colin Powell, in all likelihood, could have had an influence on our decision to go into Iraq. He is a military person and enjoyed the stature of Secretary of State. If Powell had resigned in opposition to our invasion of Iraq, he might very well have presented an insurmountable objection to the invasion. All things being equal, we have not heard from Powell for the last twelve months or so. This is a shame and he should now state whether he supports the invasion of an Arab nation that meant us no obvious threat.
Well, there you have a few cases of missing faces. This is what happens when essayists have to pass a rainy Sunday afternoon dreaming of prominent figures who are no longer in the news. Of all of the missing people named herein, the one I miss most is good old Charlie, the Prince of Wales. Old Charlie composed the goofiest messages and speeches ever heard by civilized men. I miss him terribly.
E. E. CARR
April 27, 2006
Essay 187
Postscript: In recent weeks several retired generals of the United States have suggested that Donald Rumsfeld should resign and thus also become another missing face. It seems to me that their aim was too low. They should have sought the resignation of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Rumsfeld contends that he was never asked about invading Iraq. If Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were to become missing faces, the political scene in this country and in the world would be greatly improved.
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Kevin’s commentary: I don’t think that Pop was fair to Dick Cheney earlier in this episode when he said that Bush’s brain was divided just between Hughes and Rove. Clearly it was a case of thirds. As part of my rigorous fact-checking process for this essay I determined that all three of the women mentioned have had no mentions in the news media for quite some time. That is to say, they’ve now been out of the public eye for more than eight years considering the date this essay was written. Not so, obviously, for prince Charlie but I don’t have a very good grasp of just how much attention he used to draw to himself.