Reporter's Notebook: 'Karen of Arabia' Reaches Out to Saudis

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA, Sept. 26, 2005 — -- In Saudi Arabia today, Karen Hughes went beyond her public diplomacy mission by gently questioning the Saudi ban on women drivers and criticizing the Saudis for connections to extremist literature found in some mosques in the United States.

"We are concerned that literature has been found in American mosques that has a message that is not tolerant and we hope many of you and people in Saudi Arabia will work with us to help deal with this issue," Hughes said during a roundtable with an all-male group of Saudi reporters.

"I hope you will also find room to respect people of different faith and different faith traditions."

Hughes had meetings with King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan and Foreign Minister Saud – an unusually high-powered group of meetings for a visiting third-tier State Department official.

A former White House counsel and close adviser to President Bush, Hughes was appointed in March to burnish the United States' image overseas, especially in the Muslim world.

Earlier in the day, Hughes faced a town hall meeting of 500 highly educated Saudi women who turned the tables on America's recently appointed public diplomacy czar. Hughes wanted to talk about America's image in the Arab world; the woman hammered her instead with question after question about the negative portrayal of Saudis in the U.S. media.

When Hughes' listening tour pulled up to the Dar Al-Hakmah women's college in Jeddah, the most immediate issue for the traveling press was whether we would be allowed in the auditorium. School officials wouldn't even let Hughes' male translator in because it would violate the strict segregation of the sexes. To the shock of embassy officials (including one who called it an "historic moment"), both the men and women in the traveling press corps were allowed inside. No filming permitted, however.

Inside the auditorium, Hughes conducted a town hall meeting with the 500 female students, all covered head-to-almost-toe with abayas. During the session, one student suggested the United States name a "minister of media" to deal with inaccuracies and bias in the news media. Hughes called it a "wonderful idea," and then launched into a defense of freedom of the press.