Message: We Care about Women
I have on several occasions mentioned "Ask the White House" (hereafter AWH) on the White House's Web-site. It is described as "an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House."
And the transcripts, at least on first glance, suggest that it is indeed "interactive." Each guest invariably begins with, "Hi. Thank you for joining me today. I look forward to taking your questions."
But I have to admit that after reading Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's recent session, I don't think the "interactive forum" is so "interactive."
What seems to happen is that they first annouce the AWH guest and discussion topic in advance, and invite the public to submit questions. Then they cherry-pick from the set of questions submitted, the guest answers the questions selected, and the questions and responses are posted all at once, together on the site.
So it is not interactive in the way a live internet chat is interactive. But there's more to my complaint.
If AWH announces the guest and topic beforehand, they can more or less anticipate the questions they will receive, prepare responses ahead of time, and simply pick out the questions they anticipated and post them with the prefabricated responses. In fact, if they want to communicate a set of talking points on an issue, all they have to do is invite the appropriate guest with the appropriate topic, and they are assured of getting the right questions for them.
And I think that this is what typically happens with Administration officials.
Why do I think this? Consider Elaine Chao's session. Obviously if she is answering a select group of questions and then posting all of her responses together on the AWH site for the reader's perusal, there's no need for repetition. She need not pick the same or similar questions to answer, and she need not repeat the same answers. In fact, to do so shows a disregard for norms of communication. (This is all the more true for internet chats, for which verbatim repetitions are unnatural.)
But if one reads the transcript of her recent AWH session on Iraq and women's rights, one cannot help but be struck by the sheer number of repeated points and by the number of times they are repeated:
- The new interim constitution guarantees women to no less than 25% of the seats in the National Assembly. (Repeated 8 times)
- The new interim constitution guarantees women the right to vote. (6x)
- "Deep, lasting change must come from within." (3x)
- Women's rights and democracy centers (18 in total) have been built in Iraq. (6x)
- "This Administration" or "the Administration" is responsible for this or that good result. (10x) Whenever possible, she uses this phrase as the agent responsible for positive efforts in Iraq, instead of "we," "the United States," or the specific agencies involved, such as the CPA or USAID.
- She is personally familiar with three women who work for Iraq's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. (3x)
- The Iraqi Governing Council includes three women. (2x)
- The Administration has built college dorms for women. (2x)
- Iraqi women are "hungry for democracy" (2x) and determined to have a voice in their country's future. (5x)
- Chao is so committed to continuing to work with Iraqi women that she has set up an email address for them to correspond with her personally. (2x)
- American women did not gain the right to vote until the early 20th century, so we must have patience. (2x)
- She saw men, women and their children walking on streets together. (2x)
- "Iraq is moving in the right direction and women are helping to lead the way." (2x, once she attributes the quote to Ambassador Bremer, and another time she attributes it to the President of the Iraqi Interim Council and "others")
- "The commitment of this administration to women's rights in Iraq is unshakable." (2x) Also: "This Administration strongly supports women's rights in Iraq." (Why the qualification "in Iraq"?)
Moreover, right at the beginning in her response to the first question, she repeats the very same paragraph, suggesting a "cut and paste" gone awry.
In addition, the U.S. government has initiated a wide range of programs to meet the healthcare, education and vocational training needs of Iraqi women. Deep, lasting change must come from within and I was very encouraged by the determination of the Iraqi women I met with during my recent visit.
The US government has initiated a wide range of programs to meet the health care, education and vocational training needs of Iraqi women. Deep lasting change must come from within and I was very encouraged by the determination of the Iraqi women I met during my recent visit.
Finally, twice she answers a question on whether Iraqi women are better off without Saddam Hussein by repeating the same story verbatim about reactions to his capture. It's not a story based on a personal encounter she had on her visit. It's a statement of an Iraqi woman made during a December 2003 women's conference in Jordan that Chao had handy:
"Almost all broke into tears and sobs that the man who had managed to reach into each individual's personal life and rip it apart by killing their husbands, sons and fathers -- and raping and maiming their women -- was brought to justice."
Clearly the AWH here is used simply to repeat the Administration's talking points. It gives the appearance of being an "interactive forum," but not the reality. It's no more interactive than a telephone automated answering system.
Message: We care about women.
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Message: We care about women.
Postscript: Elaine Chao was one of six consecutive female guests on AWH in the past week, which happened to be International Women's Week.
Prior to this month, approximately 1 in 6 AWH guests were women.
In the same week: (1) President Bush spoke at a Women's Entrepeneurship Forum (3/11 in Cleveland, OH), (2) he and Laura spoke on the global progress of women's rights, and (3) Bush gave a speech on women's rights in which he praised the efforts of female reformers. Unfortunately, one of those he praised, Fathi Jahmi, was a man, baby.
[n.b. This post has been edited.]
1:12:25 AM 
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