Election ‘08: Tip O’Neill, Meet Benazir Bhutto
All politics may be local, but no sooner was Benazir Bhutto dead in Pakistan than the political jackals were out, picking through her remains for evidence of what this latest terrorist crime could mean for the American presidential election. Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon examines their early conclusions.
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Rest in peace, Tip O’Neill, but all politics isn’t local anymore. We live in a tiny, virtual world now and the shots fired at Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, Pakistan yesterday exploded in Des Moines, Iowa minutes later. Whoever killed Benazir and the others upended the US Presidential election as well, at least for a bit and possibly permanently.
Within minutes, the electoral scavengers were out (I among them), weighing the winners and losers. The Politico was one of the first out of the box: “The instant conventional wisdom will say that heavy news coverage of the gun and bomb attack will bolster the arguments of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, both members of the Armed Services Committee…That same instant, C.W. will say that the candidates most damaged will be Sen. Barack Obama and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.”
Well, they were certainly right about Huckabee who, almost instantly, shot himself in his already wounded foreign policy foot, improbably apologizing to Pakistan on our behalf for what had happened.
And he wasn’t the only candidate to jump the shark, as the saying goes. Bill Richardson called for Musharraf to step down before anyone even knew who did it. And foreign policy is supposed to be the New Mexico governor’s strong suit. Joe Biden’s people gave him a deserved hiding:
“It’s so wildly irresponsible that it can’t go unchallenged,” Biden spokesman Larry Rasky said of Richardson’s statement. “Asking Musharraf to step aside now would leave a huge power vacuum at a time of crisis in Pakistan. It’s the last thing we need until we know what really happened and who’s responsible.”
Most of the other candidates had the good sense to keep their mouths shut or at least use them to mouth the usual platitudes, according to that same Politico round up.
But what the website doesn’t say - and it’s no surprise considering The Politico’s documented bias - is that events like the Bhutto assassination are good for the Republicans in general (except Paul, of course) because they remind the nation of the reality of the War on Terror. No one on the Democratic side - not even Hillary - has been particularly forthright about the dangers of Islamofascism with the possible exception of Biden, who seems marginalized. The others had been hoping it would go away - or at least go into relative hibernation until after November 2008.
No such luck, obviously. Now the question is what are the Democrats going to do, because this event will doubtless serve as something of a wake up call. Unfortunately, the Dems are hedged in by their left pacifist wing. It’s hard to imagine Edwards or Obama having much of interest to say without creating a firestorm at the DailyKos. But Hillary is in difficult shoals as well - trapped by Edwards and Obama on her left. (Of course, Edwards was originally on her right - but that was then and this is now.)
Now bad as the Benazir Bhutto assassination is, it could have been worse. Bhutto was no saint and far from a Gandhi. Still, I predict its ramifications will be great. Any Democratic strategist worth his pay must be thinking: what if there is a major terror action before November - another London or Madrid or, worse yet, something domestic - what will we do?
Well, frankly, I don’t know. They will be in the deep you-know-what. They made a similar wager on The Surge, betting that it would fail. Lately, it’s been succeeding. But that failed bet - no matter what happens to it - will seem as nothing compared to a major terror attack.
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5 Comments
Drugstore Cowgirl:Excellent and, sadly, so true.
Dec 28, 2007 - 6:33 am Mark William Paules:Pakistan is not a nation-state in any meaningful sense. Like much of the region it’s a patchwork of tribal enclaves and constantly shifting alliances. The problem is multiplied by magnitudes when you factor in a population of 160 million. And we need to admit that the international border with Afghanistan is largely a fiction. What to do?
Job one is to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. We pay Musharraf for the intelligence necessary to destroy it, or perhaps even spirit it away, with a fat bonus for him in exile when the time comes. We can only hope that such contingency plans have already been made. The alternative would be to stand by and watch India take care of the problem, and that would be dangerous in the extreme. Step two would be to quarantine Pakistan until the situation sorts itself out. We need to stop the contagion before we can address the cause.
Dec 28, 2007 - 6:58 am David Thomson:“Whoever killed Benazir and the others upended the US Presidential election as well, at least for a bit and possibly permanently.”
Permanently? That is very doubtful. The MSM and its leftist allies cannot allow this to occur. Pakistan must quickly be pushed to the back pages. This issue will only help the Republicans. The Democrats are mostly dishonest pacifists and prefer running on campaign themes such as “It’s the economy, Stupid!” Also, in their heart of hearts—they blame American for the troubles of the world. We are at fault for supposedly crapping on the dark skin victims of the Third World.
Dec 28, 2007 - 9:18 am Doc:“What’s the fuss? The War on Terror is a Bumper Sticker.”
John Edwards
Dec 28, 2007 - 12:45 pm RE:American politics can be so incredibly embarrassing at times.
It really makes me wonder sometimes how we’ve survived this long. I have to attribute it to the genius of our Founding Fathers.
Dec 29, 2007 - 7:59 am