Biden asked one witness if he could name "one European country where the treatment of Arab Muslims, citizens or those on visas ... are treated as well?" Biden went on to wonder why French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen -- a "virtual Nazi" expressing "anti-Arab sentiment" -- received nothing like the saturation critical coverage in the Arab and Muslim worlds extended to anti-Muslim remarks made by Christian religious leaders like the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. "We have some idiot preacher mischaracterizing the Islamic religion and he's treated in the Middle East as if he were a presidential candidate," Biden said. (Of course, in 1988 Robertson -- who in September 2002 told Fox News Channel that Mohammed "was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic" plus "a robber and a brigand" and called Islam "a monumental scam" -- was a presidential candidate.)

So no, not all of the criticism against America is fair. But that is surely beside the point now, when hatred is boiling up and the larger critique is based on American foreign policy. So what sort of campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world will actually work? "Arabs aren't born to hate Americans," says Samer Shehata, an assistant professor of politics at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. "But we are fighting almost a losing battle unless some policy changes take place." Shehata suggests that the U.S. should push Arab governments toward democracy and help them with educational initiatives so Arab and Muslim youth have hope.

Arab-American Institute's AbiNader agrees that to blame the United States for "all the problems they have in the Middle East is unconscionable, to think Israel is a client state of the United States is unrealistic, and to think somehow the U.S. can wave a magic wand, and somehow all these countries will have human rights and the empowerment of women is unfair." That doesn't, however, mean that the U.S. shouldn't acknowledge that its worldwide supremacy gives it certain obligations -- and that meeting them will ultimately benefit the U.S.

The political left and right seem to agree with the importance of bringing democracy and human rights to Arab and Muslim governments, though the ways this will be achieved are in dispute. Both the Bush administration's conservative idealists and some liberal Arabists hope that a democratic and prosperous Iraq will have a domino effect on the backward regimes in the region. But while Shehata and AbiNader suggest increasing economic aid to Arab and Muslim countries, in addition to more pressure on Prime Minister Sharon, from the other end of the political spectrum come quite different ideas. Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation says that the Bush administration incorporated some of his thoughts on the subject in its National Security Strategy, issued last September. Cohen says that in order to encourage moderation in the Middle East and East Asia, the U.S. needs to keep closer tabs on the competing ideology of radical Islamism by creating a worldwide database of those who incite murder against the West.

"In many, many cases, the preachers, the mullahs, the mosques and the media doing this are government sponsored," he says. The U.S. needs to take a stand, so "when you preach the murder of infidels, then we start taking measures diplomatically and economically to start shutting them down." And while Shehata and AbiNader discuss providing more educational opportunities to Arab and Muslim children, Cohen talks about "addressing the systemic problem of jihadi education in Islam." All three do agree on one thing: "Beyond broadcasting, which is just starting, we're not doing very much," Cohen says.

Will that change anytime soon? Last week, Margaret Tutwiler arrived in Kuwait City. The U.S. ambassador to Morocco, Tutwiler served under former Secretary of State James Baker III in a variety of positions, including as State Department spokeswoman during the 1991 Gulf War. She is now serving as spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq, headed by Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. It stands to be a posting of limited duration; Tutwiler is in talks with the State Department to replace Beers as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.

If Tutwiler gets the job, it won't be a bad thing that she put in some time in Baghdad. Because it is there that many observers see a make-or-break opportunity for the United States. Pachios sees the image of America coming back "if we, as the administration has pledged, minimize our stay in Iraq, have a very effective humanitarian aid program in Iraq," as well as aggressively push for a satisfactory peace between Israel and the Palestinians -- and better publicize our good deeds. Bush's rhetoric about a free Iraq is good, says Bathsheba Crocker, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "but until we follow through ... the messages ring a bit hollow."

Hammuda, one of the stars of the "Shared Values" ad, has an even more pessimistic take. "If we don't succeed in establishing another Japan in Iraq, as Mr. Bush presumed we will do, if we leave the country halfway done, I don't think it [the U.S. image in the Arab and Muslim worlds] will be reparable."

Coming Monday: Former U.S. information veterans grade current efforts -- and slam the White House

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