HOW ABOUT SELLING SS REFORM FIRST?:

Karen Hughes to be nominated for State Department post (G. ROBERT HILLMAN, 3/11/05, The Dallas Morning News)

Karen Hughes, one of President Bush's closest confidants who left the White House nearly three years ago to return home to Austin, Texas, has accepted a key post in the State Department, administration officials said Friday.

Hughes - who has continued to advise the president, most visibly during the final stretch of his re-election campaign - will be nominated by him to be undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, the officials said on the condition of anonymity.

The undersecretary, who must be confirmed by the Senate, deals with polishing the U.S. image abroad, particularly in the Muslim world since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The post, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has singled out as "extremely important," has been held during the last few years by two high-profile women - Charlotte Beers, a former advertising executive; and Margaret Tutwiler, who worked in the first Bush administration.

Hughes, a former Fort Worth, Texas, television reporter, has little diplomatic experience, but a rich background in politics and communications strategy.