The WSJ has a fantastic op-ed today on Al-Hurra, the State Dept. financed Arab television network broadcasting out of Virginia to the Middle East. To sum it up, this doesn’t look good for the Bush admin. Some excerpts:

During the March 21 House Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rep. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) pressed Ms. Rice on the wisdom of providing a platform to Islamic terrorists, citing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s Dec. 7 speech, which Al-Hurra aired live. The broadcast speech “went on for 30 minutes,” she responded, “followed by commentary, much of which was critical of Nasrallah.”
In fact, Mr. Nasrallah’s speech was carried in its entirety, roughly an hour and eight minutes. The commentary that followed–a 13-minute phone interview with Wael Abou Faour, a member of Lebanon’s governing coalition–was indeed critical of Mr. Nasrallah. He accused the Hezbollah leader of not being anti-U.S. and anti-Israel enough. While Mr. Nasrallah had claimed Lebanon’s governing coalition was aligned with the U.S. and had backed Israel during the war last summer, Mr. Abou Faour said that Hezbollah was actually closer to the U.S and added that any Lebanese faction that assisted “the Israeli enemy” should not be allowed to engage in political discussion because “the only place they should be [is] in prison.”

and…

With an annual budget now over $70 million, Al-Hurra has for three years served as the centerpiece of America’s aggressive post-9/11 courtship of the Arab world. Insiders maintain that the network was fulfilling its mission until it hired former CNN producer Larry Register last November. Mr. Register has not, to his credit, changed Al-Hurra’s dedication to showcasing the full range of U.S. politics. The other side of the network, however, has been “gutted,” in the words of one staffer. Even though Mr. Register has made some improvements since the March column, Al-Hurra still produces far fewer stories about Arab government corruption and human-rights abuses. (Mr. Register did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.)

and…

Under Mr. Register, Al-Hurra covered the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last December. But in a stark break from Mr. Harb’s era, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the attendees at his conference were treated with unmistakable deference.

and here’s the kicker…

In fairness, there’s no reason to suppose Mr. Register understood exactly what was being broadcast: He doesn’t speak Arabic. Then again, there’s no evidence that he bothered, or cared, to learn about the contents. Either way, Mr. Register clearly doesn’t grasp Al-Hurra’s mission.

(via SisterToldjah)