James Glassman: The Journalist Turned Journo-Lobbyist's Bid to Be PR Czar

James Glassman, the nominee for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, probably won't have much of an impact on how the United States presents itself to the rest of the world.

For one thing, he'll only have 11 months in the post. For another -- as his predecessor Karen Hughes proved -- putting shinier lipstick on the pig of U.S. foreign policy doesn't do much to assuage widespread anti-American sentiment. Still, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's January 30 hearing on Glassman's nomination provided some insight into Washington's evolving view of public diplomacy.

In his prepared opening statement (PDF), Glassman echoed some popular State Department talking points:

The war against Al Qaeda and other extremist threats to peace, freedom, and justice is not only military. It is a war of ideas. ...

Exchanges are the crown jewels of public diplomacy. ... The truth is that ordinary Americans are superb citizen ambassadors. ... The problem is that the vast majority of people in the world have never met an American. ...

Never, in my view, should global public opinion polls determine the foreign policy of the United States. Can we do a better job of explaining our policies? Yes. Will those policies be universally embraced? No.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Glassman's testimony was his emphasis on the Internet:

How do we get the rest of the world to know about these [exchange] programs ... let's say, electronically come into contact with more Americans? ... One of the things that I want to try to do, especially in concert with [Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs nominee] Goli [Ameri], because both of us have a background in telecommunications and Internet, is to amplify what we're doing. ...

I got an impressive demonstration of this the other day, the Digital Outreach Team, which is now I believe eight or nine people who are blogging, identifying themselves as U.S. government representatives. But they're on blogs, they're on websites, Arabic language, Farsi, Persian and Urdu, and ... trying to get the facts out. ...

A lot of the new [public diplomacy] tools have to be through high technology. ... Our enemies are ... eating our lunch, when it comes to getting their word out on the Internet. But we are coming back. And we are coming back forcefully. The Digital Outreach Team that I talked about earlier. We are, as far as we can tell, the only government that's actually participating in blogging, in going online and saying 'Here's the truth about it.' We're pushing back. We need to do that more and more. ... We're using more and more of the tools that exist on the Internet to get our word across. And that will be a major focus of my attention, if I'm confirmed.

Glassman's remarks bring to mind his integral role in Tech Central Station (TCS), a corporate-sponsored news and opinion website set up by the Republican lobbying firm DCI Group. TCS has helped ExxonMobil pooh-pooh global warming, McDonald's slam the movie "Super Size Me," and the pharmaceutical industry oppose imported drugs -- all while giving the appearance of independent support for its sponsors's agenda.

"James Glassman and TCS have given birth to something quite new in Washington: journo-lobbying," wrote Washington Monthly's Nicholas Confessore in 2003. TCS helps its sponsors, many of whom are also DCI Group clients, "dominate the entire intellectual environment in which officials make policy decisions," according to Confessore. Glassman's willingness to associate his name and journalistic past -- which includes serving as the editor of Roll Call and writing a financial column for the Washington Post -- with a journo-lobbying venture was key to TCS's success.

It's too bad that no Senators questioned Glassman about Tech Central Station, or his involvement with Investors Action, an organization with DCI lobbyists among its personnel. Investors Action has listed among its goals "tort reform" and ending the "death tax," but in 2006 nearly all of its expenses went towards hosting a forum on "the repercussions for the region when Latin American countries struggle to meet their debt commitments," according to its financial report for the year.