Earlier this evening I put up a post that's relevant to the discussion here. I won't subject you to my blog, the entirety of the post is below.

Sixty-two years ago, Congress was so troubled by the operations of the Voice of America that it slashed the appropriation for the State Department's Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs, known as OIC, in half. At the time, not only were broadcasts of dubious quality hitting the airwaves (including many from private media contractors), but to a lack of accountability of the personnel and content producers. Congress was not questioning the act or need to propagandize, it was responding to the extremely poor quality and haphazard nature of U.S. efforts in light of communist inroads into Western public opinion.

Some Congressional Republicans feared a peacetime VOA would be bias towards a Democratic Administration. Others thought the "whispers" from State in the war of contemporary war of ideas at the beginning of the Cold War were symptomatic of a larger problem of communist sympathizers within State, a problem made worse by a rash of spy scandals. America's information systems were ill and the cure was the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, formally known as Public Law 402: The United States Information and Educations Exchange Act of 1948.

In 2008, there is again trouble at VOA. Four days ago, Senator Tom Coburn, MD, sent a five-page letter to Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, detailing significant issues with the content of VOA's Farsi broadcasts. The Senator is troubled by not just the VOA but its oversight organization, the Broadcasting Board of Governors. His three major concerns are:
  1. A lack of transparency in both VOA and BBG
  2. A lack of accountability in both VOA and BBG
  3. Absence of guidance and coordination from Key Policy-Making Agencies (State, Defense, Homeland Security, National Security Council, etc)
The letter is factual and puts forward a strong case for significant change at VOA and at the BBG. Many of the complaints are, ironically, rooted in modern interpretations of Smith-Mundt. The lack of transparency, for example, can be traced to amendments to the Act in 1972 and 1985.

For example, the Senator highlights the VOA's "terrorists are freedom fighters" policy posted on VOA's blog (Did you know VOA has a blog? and why is it hosted by Google?). The discussion of the use of the "t-word" is, well, interesting. See for yourself.

However, while I agree with the Senator's criticism of VOA, the cure from the doctor from Kentucky is not holding up Jim Glassman's nomination. The position of Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy (and, by the way, Public Affairs) should not be empty any longer.

Instead, I urge the good Senator to instead convince his House colleagues (I understand from discussions last year that his colleagues in the Senate are already open to the idea) to revisit Smith-Mundt, especially the distorted modern perception that pervades not just our civilian information agencies but our military services as well. This Act, the fix for similar complaints nearly exactly sixty years ago, is the root of most of his complaints. Any promises the Senator extracts from the White House to satisfy his valid concerns laid out in his letter will be met, under current conditions, by artificial and false firewalls of modern interpretations of Smith-Mundt.