Comments on: Sen. Lieberman’s Not-So-Straight Talk on Public Diplomacy http://comops.org/journal/2008/09/11/sen-liebermans-not-so-straight-talk-on-public-diplomacy/ A Journal of the Consortium for Strategic Communication Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:56:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: percyexpat http://comops.org/journal/2008/09/11/sen-liebermans-not-so-straight-talk-on-public-diplomacy/comment-page-1/#comment-123 percyexpat Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:39:22 +0000 http://comops.org/journal/?p=379#comment-123 You're quite right to highlight the vast, gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality on the subject of public diplomacy (as with more or less the whole of ideology and foreign policy), unfortunately realism (note the small r) has little or no place in politics, especially in the run up to a presidential election. People want to believe that they are right, good, holy and that their ideals are destined for universality once the rest of the world wakes up and realises their mistakes. This is the cornerstone of elective optimism that no candidate for any office will ever break, unless they want to lose horribly. Such is the human condition...Even more unfortunate is that people on all sides believe this same thing. Just like how everyone believes that God is on the side of their sports team, everyone thinks their ideals are the right ones and if only other people would wake up and see these 'truths' then we could all live in peace. But then what would I know? I'm a pessimist. You’re quite right to highlight the vast, gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality on the subject of public diplomacy (as with more or less the whole of ideology and foreign policy), unfortunately realism (note the small r) has little or no place in politics, especially in the run up to a presidential election. People want to believe that they are right, good, holy and that their ideals are destined for universality once the rest of the world wakes up and realises their mistakes. This is the cornerstone of elective optimism that no candidate for any office will ever break, unless they want to lose horribly. Such is the human condition…Even more unfortunate is that people on all sides believe this same thing. Just like how everyone believes that God is on the side of their sports team, everyone thinks their ideals are the right ones and if only other people would wake up and see these ‘truths’ then we could all live in peace.

But then what would I know? I’m a pessimist.

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