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So who do you turn to if you're an embattled administration facing an unpopular war, bitter criticism both at home and abroad, an exodus of senior staff, and the barrel of a long year's worth of lame ducked-ness?
A retired general? Nope. A political mastermind? Nah, that would be too easy. Perhaps a captain of industry? They're too busy starting and running multi-billion dollar foundations.
Well, then how about someone who made his name by getting up and going to work everyday? Cha-ching! That must have been what Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes were thinking when they named recently inducted Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. to be a Special Sports Envoy for the U.S. State Department.
The Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy, under the auspices of Hughes, created the public diplomacy position in order to improve the American image abroad by encouraging Americans from all walks of life to engage in the country's diplomacy efforts. Cal was the second envoy named, with the first being figure skater Michelle Kwan. Ripken's first trip will be to China in the fall.
While those of us who are lifelong Orioles fans will never object to anything honoring Cal, there is reason to be skeptical that these goodwill ambassador-type positions will have the intended P.R. effect. We know Cal will do his best, but let's face it: it will take more than sports to improve our standing in the world court of public opinion, even if baseball could catch on in the rest of the world. If we were in his shoes, we'd likely spend most of our time trying to hang out with goodwill ambassadors from the U.N. in hopes of someday meeting Angelina Jolie.
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This is disgusting.
Maybe he could take over Karl Rove's giant puppet strings and puppet-walk the President's most-vacation-time-ever ass in to work, at which point Cal, who assuredly reads a non-Murdoch newspaper once per month, could explain the differences between Shi'a and Sunni, and, you know, why invading Iran might not play well in terms of international sympathy, and probably isn't necessary, since "President" there doesn't mean the same thing it does here; and, even if Cal is unwilling to push on that, perhaps he could explain to the President how the budget works, because my sorry 20-something ass is never going to come up with enough cash to pay down the national debt, especially if we start any more two trillion dollar fiascos.
Get some fucking perspective, people (and others claiming this somehow "taints" Ripken). These are honorary, (hopefully) non-political appointments pretty much identical to the Goodwill Ambassadors appointed by the UN. He's going to make appearances at sporting events, cut ribbons, and try to get Asian and Latin American kids to play more baseball (and buy more MLB merchandise). That's something that he can do without being held responsible for every bad decision Bush & Co. have made over the past six-and-a-half years.
If his involvement has a marginally positive effect on the way baseball-playing countries feel about is, that's great, but I don't think anyone would even try to argue that it would, or should, outweigh or supersede more substantive policy issues. The country as a whole needs to spend a lot less time declaiming and solidifying the boundaries between "us" and "them" and more on fixing actual problems.