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Regarding Colleen P. Graffy's Dec. 24 op-ed, "A Tweet in Foggy Bottom":
It is all very well for State Department officials and other practitioners, pundits and kibitzers in the field of public diplomacy to wax enthusiastic over their efforts and achievements in that area of mass communications.
The fact is, however, that no amount of communications expertise, technical enhancements, financial resources, programming innovations or related gimmicks (e.g. blogging, and Twitter with its tweets) are likely by themselves to produce measurable changes in America's global image so long as our society and political leaders are seen to behave in ways that belie the values we profess to hold dear: freedom, human rights, self-determination, democracy, elemental fairness and equal justice under law. This rings especially true with regard to U.S. policies toward the Middle East.
In other words, it's not what we say or how we say it that will make a real difference in improving America's sagging image abroad, but what we do. To pretend otherwise is self-defeating. It is also hypocrisy.
THOMAS J. CAROLAN JR.
Silver Spring
