Fox News reports that Bush will nominate Hughes, one of his most intimate longtime advisers to a key State Department post in an effort to help repair the United States' image abroad, especially in the Arab world, a senior administration official said today.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the announcement that Bush has selected Karen Hughes to be "undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs" will be made early next week, possibly as early as Monday. The Austin Presbyterian activist will report to that oh-so-feminine daughter of a Presbyterian Minister, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, after Senate confirmation.

George Bush has a taste for strong women, and the strapping nearly 6-foot Hughes falls right in line with his mother Barbara and, of course, Condi. His wife, despite her demure Mona Lisa smile, is no wimp either (his dad famously fills that role for the family, according to Newsweek). On camera, Laura is the ever-admiring wife at her hubby's side. At home she is more of a Tennessee Williams character, sittin' and smokin' out on the porch while the menfolk do their horse tradin' inside.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Karen Hughes had the good sense to leave the White House, but not the employ of the man she loves (she says she loves the president), before the Shock and Awe campaign of 2003, launched against Baghdad, a city of 5 million souls, over half children (she says she loves children). She said she was returning to Texas to stand by her man --her husband I refer to this time. She wanted to be a Sunday School teacher and a chauffeur for her son, she said.

Well, the heck with that. A higher duty calls: the Bush Crusade against Islam and for oil. Almost half of all Americans have bought into it, but the Arabs and Iranians still have to be sold on it, or some reasonable facsimile of the past Crusades. You can imagine how difficult this is with the fresh memory of the Abu Graib forced orgies, the leveling of Fallujah, and the unfortunate demise of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians over and above the actuarial norm (according to the British medical journal Lancet). It will test the mettle even of Hughes, who has shown, at turns, the humor of Diller and the sternness of Madame Defarge (whatever it takes).

Another challenge is to fight off her main rival suitor for the attentions of George Bush, that is, Karl Rove. Today, Rove must be the maddest (angriest) man in the world as he contemplates the return of Bush's pet "Green Lima Bean" to Rove's domain, the White House.

As far as other qualifications, Karen can break the Ninth Commandmen (about lying) with the most facile of them. Take, for example, this exchange with her Austin Sunday School class: "What's the president like in person?" one inquired. "He has a great sense of humor. He doesn't take himself too seriously. He's focused . . . clear. He gives all of us who work for him very good marching orders." Well, in all fairness, one out of four's not bad.

In all seriousness, though, to give this item its proper importance, Karen will take some downhome virtue from Texas to Washington. After all, the decimation and wasting of Iraq wasn't on her watch. Maybe Rove made him do it, as Skip Wilson would say. Also, in a hopeful vein, Hughes' husband accompanied their pastor, Doug Fletcher, from Austin to Palestine as part of a friendship mission to that troubled place. Maybe Karen Hughes can advance Arab-American friendship. I doubt it. But she will be in place to "explain" the next war, the one planned by Israel -- and the Pentagon (but I repeat myself) -- against Iran.