Robert Satloff's Comedy Hour on Hurra TV

A well-known scholar of the Middle East sent me this (she does not want to be identified): " I followed the link from your blog and I was horrified. Here is someone whose antipathy for Arabs (although he apparently gets red carpet treatment in Amman) is legendary. So the US, as part of its vaunted public diplomacy, has chosen him to host a show and read virtually (or literally, as Joe Biden would say) incomprehensibly in Arabic to start the show. What is the point? Do the people in charge not know how dreadful he sounds, what a mockery he makes of the whole notion of diplomacy and how insulting this is? (Or do they think all you have to do is mispronounce shukran and Arabs will swoon over how wonderfully you speak the language?) The rest of the damn show has subtitles, so why not his pathetic introduction as well? Is this hubris or waqaha? Would they dare put on the air someone so clearly linguistically challenged reading something in French or Spanish or Russian? Of course not! Perhaps it is in fact a shame so few people watch al-Hurrah, because anyone who knows Arabic and has any doubts about the utter contempt of the US for Arabs would quickly have those doubts dispelled by listening to Satloff. "