Arab correspondents in Washington, DC

Since 1991, Arab correspondents in Washington, DC and in Paris, France have become amusing.  They don't see themselves as correspondents for their home publications or media but as official representatives and propagandists for the US and French governments respectively.  When I came to DC back in the 1980s, all Arab correspondents (even those working for Gulf publications) were critical observers and opponents of US foreign policy.  In many cases, those same correspondents (and some of them I knew from those days) turned and became unabashed propagandists for Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama respectively.  It is rather amusing as their audience see them in those roles: as speaking for the US administration and not as independent observers.  Of course, there are exceptions: the correspondents for Al-Jazeera, Al-Quds Al-`Arabi, As-Safir, and Al-Akhbar (there was an excellent correspondent--believe it or not--for An-Nahar but I don't remember his name: it is an Armenian name and he worked briefly for the racist, sectarian Christian, anti-Syrian (people), anti-Palestinian (people).)