Writing for Salon, Joe Conason is the latest to take a swipe at the US government's disastrous and hugely expensive Arabic-language TV channel, al-Hurra:

Having started as an arm of the Bush administration "democracy campaign" – with its founding chairman handpicked by Karl Rove – al-Hurra has never been able to achieve the kind of credibility enjoyed by al-Jazeera in Arab households. Repeated investigations of al-Hurra over the past five years by the American Prospect, ProPublica, "60 Minutes" and various federal investigators have uncovered rampant cronyism, weak programming and broad rejection by the targeted Arab audiences.

Even President Obama avoided appearing on al-Hurra when he inaugurated his outreach campaign to the Arab and Muslim world, sidestepping the US network for an interview on Saudi-based al-Arabiya.

Yet the network continues to spend well over $100 million annually in taxpayer funding, without any measurable positive effect and much anecdotal evidence that its impact is negative.