[NOTE FROM DAVID HENDERSON: THIS COMMENT CONTAINS A PERSONAL ATTACK ON AN INDIVIDUAL WHICH I DO NOT CONDONE. WHILE THE COMMENT IS POSTED, I HAVE EDITED THE CONTENT TO REMOVE THE PERSONAL ATTACK] Yes, there is a “dire need to repair America’s reputation around the world”. Unfortunately, … RFE/RL became a part of the problem. Consider an editorial in the oldest Czech national (incidentally, quite proAmerican) newspaper LN ”Equality with Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals”:”Prague headquarters of RFE/RL, which pretends to be a messenger of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, behaves as an employer in such a way as if the principles it heralds are relevant “just” for the whole planet but not for what is going on inside that estimable organization itself”. That editorial (add here prime-time TV broadcasts, an open letter to Vaclav Havel, former political prisoner turned Czech President, etc), is just an echo of ugly lawsuits brought against RFE/RL … One of the plaintiffs is a mother of three minors. The Radio is being sued for violations of its foreign employees’ labor and civil rights (national equality), and of legislative sovereignty of the Czech Republic, RFE/RL’s host country. [ENTIRE PARAGRAPH REMOVED - DH]
Hopefully (for American message and for RFE/RL, a highly visible American institution abroad), the RFE/RL leader assigned under president Obama, will start not with the grand politically correct words but with small practically correct deeds. The first such a deed should be the purge of double standards tarnishing RFE/RL and U.S. image abroad: swallow bureaucratic pride and put an end to the shameful court cases against American RFE/RL in its host country. This country is our important ally in Afghanistan and Kosovo; in less than ten days it will assume the presidency of the European Union; its public opinion is bitterly divided over eventual construction of the American antimissile radar here, for the U.S. trustworthiness is not taken for granted anymore. Publicly exposed RFE/RL’s double standards under Gedmin only contributed to that mistrust.
You are right, Mr. Henderson, American image abroad “has been damaged beyond imagination”. But not beyond repair. And the repairman matters. A doer, not a talker.

~ Alex