News Flash: Hughes out at State; Pentagon departure looms?

Karen Hughes, the head of communications and public diplomacy and long-time Bush enabler adviser is out at the State Department.

Hughes had probably the hardest job in government today — making foreigners like America again. However, her thinking on the best way to achieve this mission was, at best, small minded.

A Pentagon insider tells the D-Ring that a similarly high-profiled communicator at the Department of Defense is on the way out as well, with an announcement to come in the near future. Apparently, no one wants the job of talking about the administration’s foreign policy at the moment…

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Monday blog-tipping

Visit Transformation Tracker. Sean Lawson is a smart guy.

I mean, friggn’ Ph.D smart.

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And in other logo news…

Blackwater USA also has a new logo. I think they have a few problems greater than branding however…

Is it much of an upgrade from this? Maybe there is a less direct allusion to a target, but… well, I’ll let you judge.

Read more in the New York Times.

Update: From an enterprising comment at Danger Room, here is a new proposal for a Blackwater logo:

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ROFL

The CIA has a “Terrorist Buster” logo:

I wish I were kidding.

(Hotel Tango: Danger Room)

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He didn’t ask

But maybe he should have:

The Army, Navy and Air Force unwittingly advertised for recruits on a website for gays, who are barred from military service if they are open about their sexual orientation.

When informed Tuesday by USA TODAY that they were advertising on GLEE.com, a networking website for gay professionals, recruiters expressed surprise and said they would remove the job listings.

“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” said Maj. Michael Baptista, advertising branch chief for the Army National Guard, which will spend $6.5 million on Internet recruiting this year. “We didn’t knowingly advertise on that particular website,” which he said does not “meet the moral standards” of the military.

Does not meet the moral standards?!? Has Maj. Baptista seen the kind of stuff that gets posted to MySpace? The military advertises there too…

DADT is a stupid policy. But not knowing where your online advertising is going? That’s moronic.

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Off-topic goodness

I don’t go off topic much.

But I think I have a new favorite blog.

Sometimes you say it best when you say it simply.

Go check out theshortestblogintheworld.

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Advice for DHS

Dear Secretary Chertoff,

You’ve created a blog. Good for you. Nice job making a move to enter the conversation.

But I don’t think you are the one writing the blog.

If I were you, I would heed the advice of National Journal’s Danny Glover:

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine think it’s a bad idea for politicians to try to adopt in the blogosphere the same “false voice” they have employed in ghost-written columns and press releases for generations.

I agree. This is a new media era, Washington. Your readers expect you to behave differently than you do in old media, and you only irritate us when you send your flacks into the blogosphere on your behalf.

Bottom line — it sounds like your public affairs shop is writing your posts. Don’t claim you are writing them if you are not. I’d love for you to prove me wrong and say that you are indeed writing the posts.

But I doubt it.

I think having your press folks write the blog in your name is why I think your blog doesn’t work — and why the State Department’s DipNote does.

Steve

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