HEWITT ON A WHITE HORSE

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Baroness Ashton had her big day at the European parliament today. Gavin Hewitt was there and has penned an article that's now available on the front page of the BBC News website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2010/03/the_trials_of_catherine_ashton.html *
Guess what? It's pretty sympathetic to her.
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Hewitt defends her over her no-show in Haiti: "She didn't travel to Haiti immediately after its destructive earthquake. She waited and only visited there last week. I have covered disasters; the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, Katrina to name a few. In my experience visiting officials are tolerated more than welcomed."
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He then defends her over what he calls her "no-show at the European defence minister's meeting": "She was actually in Ukraine, a strategically important country for the EU." This misstates the issue. It wasn't just any old meeting of European defence ministers, as Hewitt suggests. Lady Ashton actually failed to attend a joint meeting of European defence ministers and Nato officials - their first joint meeting since she became head of European security policy.
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He portrays her as being the victim of a turf war, afflicted by a 'little lash of cruelty'.
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And as to her being out-of-her-depth, well, Gavin has an anonymous official on hand to come to the lady's help: "One senior official said to me "she can't match up to some of the foreign policy heavyweights" but she is skilful (sic) at finding consensus and has already developed good relations with Hillary Clinton and Russia's Sergei Lavrov."
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