Retro Garlic: Tupperware Lady and Map Maker Team Up

Christ, what's the logo of this company going to be, the Hindenburg?

Failed advisers Mark Penn and Karen Hughes team up to counsel ‘corporations in crisis.’

“Karen and I have had so many of the same experiences in the White House and campaigns, and have worked around the world,”

Let's see ... Hughes can, utilizing her Bush Grindhouse experience, advise to lie, stonewall, destroy evidence, ignore the rule-of-law (however, actually, if she gives the same effort, while she was the prototype Bush Grindhouse Soccer Mom, she actually will contribute nothing), while Penn brings to the table the golden rule, the big ticket of .... Blame everyone else!

Hmmm ... Maybe we have it wrong.

Perhaps, they are going to bring crisises to corporations!

And, hiring this dimwitted, less-then-dynamic duo would be the first action as to going into crisis mode ...

Okay, now it makes sense ....


The Retro Part

Clinton Campaign Causes Havoc, Sends Map Makers Scurrying For Updates; Satellites Scrambled, Causing Hours of Blank Screens On Google Earth; Rand McNally. Others Dig Through Antique Maps For Answers

Retro Garlic: Karen Hughes, Our National Tupperware Lady

Retro, Retro ... U.S. Foreign Policy Spikes Upward - Karen Hughes Resigning!

I think this is a first for The Garlic.

We are Retro Garlicing a Retro Garlic.

It was only three-weeks ago that we offered the first Karen Hughes Retro Garlic, back on October 11th. It was Sidney Blumenthal's "An open letter to Karen Hughes" in Salon that prompted us to take a look back at our under-achieving , Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

And today comes the news that this globe-trotting diplomat, sprinkling the good word on the USA to lands afar, will be leaving her post in December, with our National Tupperware Lady returning home to Texas.

If the disastrous U.S. Foreign Policy was a publicly-traded stock, there'd be a huge spike upward today, with all the talking heads on the financial news shows bubbling with this great fortune ... A red-letter day!

However, as in real life, when one stock goes up, another goes down, so, quick, sell-off your "Government-by-Cronies" stock, pronto!

Karen Hughes Red-Letter Day Links

Think Progress - BREAKING: Karen Hughes resigns.

ZappoDave/Daily Kos - Broken: Karen Hughes Gone

CNN - Hughes to exit State Department

Retro Garlic: Karen Hughes, Our National Tupperware Lady

Condi's going to miss the Tupperware parties

Retro Garlic: Karen Hughes, Our National Tupperware Lady

Well, Well, Well ... Our soccer-Mom-loving, globe-trotting, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Karen Hughes, is getting some much-deserved attention today.

Sidney Blumenthal, over on Salon, penned "An open letter to Karen Hughes", urging Ms. Hughes about "Your duty is to defend America's reputation in the world. To do so, you must persuade the Bush administration to renounce its abhorrent and hypocritical policy on torture."

The letter is an invitation to Hughes, to attend the opening of a new documentary, "Taxi to the Dark Side", which Blumenthal tells our intrepid diplomat "The film has been described by the New York Times as "a meticulous examination of American policy on the interrogation of prisoners. It traces the scandals at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere to official changes of policy originating in the vice president's office and approved by the secretary of defense. We see documents listing approved methods of interrogation, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning."

Then he explains;

Your complicity in the torture policy is one reason that I am writing you. Despite the futility of those inside the administration in bringing the problem to you, you still remain in place to redress it. As the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, responsible for defending America's reputation in the world, you must engage the issue that has most seriously damaged our image. Your obligation will continue so long as you hold your post. Those who care about the good name of the United States will not cease viewing you as a last resort, even if you disdain or ignore them, because they cling to the desperate hope that a nagging conscience or its sudden awakening will compel you actually to do your job.

And, he compliments Hughes on getting her crony position;

The genius of your appointment is that the president and his advisors understood ahead of time that they would need your services to repair the nation's reputation. After all, this position has never existed before; and it has never been so drastically needed. While it is true that there have been organizations within the government, such as U.S. Information Agency, under directors such as Edward R. Murrow and John Chancellor, that built libraries and conducted international educational exchanges, the idea of a public diplomacy czar is novel. Having someone to paper over the country's mistakes by telling people what they should think despite the reality would in the past have been considered undemocratic. Form and content, it would have been said, needed to complement each other. But your position is one in which form and content (words and deeds) stand in opposition to each other. Ironically, therefore, your job has never been more important than now.

Then, some parting advice;

While you are rethinking how to calm fears and rebuild America's image as a global leader perhaps you ought to begin to think of yourself not as a tool of the Bush administration but as a citizen of the world, not as a propagandist, constantly trying to formulate a hollow ideological phrase or distraction, but as someone who can admit mistakes and correct them.

If you receive this letter as simply a partisan broadside and can't envision your transformation into a true diplomat at large, an envoy of healing, perhaps you should just resign. Nothing will be served by continuing on your current course. Nothing different will happen. You might as well return to Texas now. To date, your diplomacy has consisted of excuses for leaving the damage to the next president to remedy.

The Retro Part

The Garlic also noted Ms. Hughes rise to power, from Bush aide to Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, shortly after we launched, in which one Arab League official offered "When America starts talking about planting the seeds of democracy, that's usually our sign to start building our bomb shelters";

Bush Appointment Has Mid-East Fearful With New Hughes Role

Then, a few months later, after she was confirmed, we got the real scoop on her work;

Hughes Makes Official Debut With Mid-East Jaunt; Fall Tupperware Line Just In; Says Flood Victims could have "saved heirlooms"

Karen Hughes, Our National Tupperware Lady!

Bonus Karen Crony Links

Juliette Kayyem: Karen of Arabia

The Moderate Voice: Ripken Diplomacy

The Belgravia Dispatch: Great Moments in Public Diplomacy

Fred Kaplan: Karen Hughes, Stay Home!; What on earth is she doing in the Middle East?

Tuesday 15 March 2005

First Lady Heads Jingoism Festival
Jeep Owners Mandated To Learn Song

Believing that most Americans do not know the words to 'The Star-Spangled Banner', our national anthem, First Lady Laura Bush is out to teach them.

Mrs. Laura Bush is the Honorary Chairperson of the "National Anthem Project: Restoring America's Voice", an intiative of the MENC: National Association for Music Education and is being sponsored by Jeep.

The project kicked off last week (March 10th) and included performances from school age children and adults, as well as the Oak Ridge Boys and the 'President's Own' U.S. Marine Band. A larger concert is planned, with some six-million children, teachers and music supporters participating, performing American patriotic and popular songs and will be broadcast around the country on PBS, and the Armed Forces Network.

As to the national sponsorship by Jeep, Dieter Zetsche, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chrysler Group offered;

"Few brands symbolize freedom and patriotism like the Jeep brand …"

The First Lady stated owning a Jeep " … was a fabulous way to see our great country …" and that all Jeep owners will be mandated to learn the song. She hopes her husband, President Bush, will write legislation that will extend this to all automobile owners.

As an element of their sponsorship, Jeep insisted on language in the contract that bars Rosanne Barr from singing the National Anthem at any Jeep-sponsored event.


Wheaties Official Breakfast Cereal
of MLB; Box To Feature Steroids
Drops Bombshell In Break From Tradition Established in 1934

General Mills anounced that they have come to terms with Major League Baseball to have their Wheaties, The Breakfast of Champions, become the 'Official Breakfast Cereal" of the league.

And, in a bombshell, an unprecidented break from tradition, for the first time since 1934, when Lou Gerhig appeared on the cereal box, Wheaties will feature a steroid pill and needle. It's unclear if the featured items are from Balco, or a generic brand of steroids.

Numerous baseball stars have endorsed the cereal, including Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lefty Grove, Mel Ott, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, Jr. and Joe Torre.

Additionally, of the 51 players selected for the 1939 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, 46 endorsed Wheaties. Wheaties also sponsored the first televised commercial sports broadcast on August 29, 1939, when NBC presented a Cincinnati Reds vs. Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast for some 500 television owners in New York City.

"We’re excited about the winning moments that our Wheaties - MLB partnership will bring" said Eric Lucas, Vice President of Marketing for General Mills’ Big G Cereals. "We've always featured the dominant star and this year, it is undoubtedly, steroids".

Lucas, as well as Tim Brosnan, Executive Vice President, Business, Major League Baseball, offered no comment on the impact of the upcoming Congressional hearings on steroids use in baseball and left the door open that a future Wheaties box could have a Congressman on it


Bush Appointment Has Mid-East Fearful With New Hughes Role

The Arab League stated a muted, and very cautious tone in reacting to the announcement of former Bush Aide Karen Hughes' new position of Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Hughes will be responsible for crafting Mid-East policies and changing the area's perceptions about the United States. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the announcement yesterday.

Hughes, a former counselor to President Bush from 2000-2002, also had a major role in shaping Bush's domestic agenda, as well as having her imprint on a number of foreign policy initiatives. Hughes left the administration to move back to Texas.

Some Arab League members are skeptical about the appointment, speculating that there'll be a continuation of false or doctored intelligence and a new call of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the next country the Bush Administration chooses to invade.

There's even confusion if the appointment is true, or if it's an endeavor of the disinformation program started by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld two-years ago.

'When America starts talking about planting the seeds of democracy", offered one Arab League official, "that's usually our sign to start building our bomb shelters".