After Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale proudly announced she was "on the same page" as her predecessors Karen Hughes and James Glassman in defining a new public diplomacy strategy, USC professor Philip Seib expressed his disappointment in an article for The Huffington Post. He remarks, “If President Obama's appointee can do no better than achieve consensus with these predecessors, what was the point of the election?”

Seib also argues that the Under Secretary’s approach is not proactive enough and lacks a clearly-outlined strategy. He adds that public diplomacy, since the Bush administration, has failed to show the creativity “needed to engage foreign publics consistently, not just in response to events of the moment.”

Matt Armstrong posted former Under Secretary James K. Glassman reaction to Seib’s diatribe on his blog Mountain Runner. Glassman defended McHale’s position of agreeing with her predecessors, retorting that public diplomacy is not in such a state of disarray, as Seib portrayed.

“He makes no attempt to engage with what Karen Hughes and I actually did as Under Secretaries or what we actually SAID” at the Senate hearing chaired by Senator Kaufman (D-DE), commented Glassman. The former Under Secretary also defended the creativity and validity of “Public Diplomacy 2.0,” asserting that the strategy was not only original, but successful as well.

The hearing’s purpose was to explore how "the United States' global message can be communicate most effectively, and how achievements of the past can be used as models for future public diplomacy activities," explains Matt Armstrong on his blog Mountain Runner.

In his opening statement, Senator Kaufman presented public diplomacy as the most important facet of US foreign policy. In attempt to draw lessons from the past and the present times, Kaufman hoped to be able to elaborate on a strategy for the future direction of public diplomacy, emphasizing the important role that technology can play in promoting the US message to the world.

Craig Hayden, Assistant Professor at the School of International Service at American University, argues on Intermap that the document reads too much as a dated conception of message management designed to counter or compete with the actions of other actors like China, Russia, and extremists groups.

Ultimately, he points out that this is a political issue that need to resolved by those with the authority and will to do so and “as some have suggested, this issue of responsibility and resources may have to be worked out by Congress.