Karen Hughes, the U.S. State Department’s top public relations envoy to the world, leaves Saturday on her first overseas trip in an attempt to polish America’s image among Muslim nations.
Hughes, a close adviser to President Bush, began work last month as the new undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs.
She calls her trip a "listening tour” of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, according to USA Today.
Media in the Muslim world have focused on the travails of poor, predominately black Americans victimized by Hurricane Katrina and accused the White House of insensitivity and ineptness.
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The Web site of Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera went so far as to accuse the U.S. government of committing "genocide” because of its slow response to the storm.
A leading Turkish newspaper wrote: "The biggest power in the world is rising over poor black corpses.”
Before Hughes’ appointment, the U.S. tried to deal with anti-American feeling in the Middle East and elsewhere with what a Heritage Foundation report called a "communications machinery … in disarray,” USA Today reports.
The report cited a lack of leadership as one reason for the disarray. Hughes is the third person to hold the public diplomacy post, which has been vacant for 27 of Bush’s 57 months in office.
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