Ghoulish Test
Is what Patrick Healy at NYT calls the Bhutto assassination visavis the U.S. presidential candidacies. I’d suggest its some of the answers rather than the test are ghoulish. I’d call it more a revealing dose of reality. NYT:
WEBSTER CITY, Iowa — For the presidential candidates, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has emerged as a ghoulish sort of test: a chance to project leadership and competence — or not — on a fast-moving and nuanced foreign policy issue.
NYT kicks off with ghoulish I-told-you-so and finger-wagging irrelevance.
Mr. Biden tried to sound presidential as he expressed concern about loose nuclear weapons in Pakistan, and he also emphasized his foresight by noting that he had long called Pakistan “the most dangerous nation on the planet.”
Mr. Richardson, a former diplomat, made an effort to cast himself as a man of action, meanwhile, calling for President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to step down.
Veers back into relevance with what this says about candidates experience and preparedness to address the issue. While no administration in recent history has a particularly good record re Pakistan, Hill may want to be careful about calling too much attention to the Taliban- and al-Qaeda-enabling, nuke-facilitating disengagement of the 1990s:
Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, spent the day asserting their own personal expertise: their private conversations with Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Musharraf, their visits to Pakistan and their concerns about fallout affecting the nation’s nuclear arsenal to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Mr. McCain, speaking in New Hampshire, also sought to convey leader-to-leader chemistry when he called Mr. Musharraf a “personally scrupulously honest” man who deserved “the benefit of the doubt” on uniting Pakistan.
OK, having dispensed with that, it’s off to the romper room:
But Mike Huckabee, the leading Republican in polls of Iowa caucusgoers, found himself on the defensive on Friday, trying to clarify earlier remarks in which he said the chaos in Pakistan underscored the need to build a fence on the American border with Mexico, and that “any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country” should be monitored. A series of misstatements in discussing the issue could buttress criticism that Mr. Huckabee has faced from his opponents that he lacked experience on foreign policy.
You think? Definite muzzle-control problem, though shooting at varmints could go a long way toward overcoming that with frontier Americans.
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois tried to sound like both a leader and a candidate on Pakistan on Friday. At one point, he said he would suspend some military aid to Pakistan if the government did not hold free elections and clamp down on terrorist groups. At another point, though, he suggested that the war in Iraq — which his rivals Mrs. Clinton, John Edwards and others had voted for — had “resulted in us taking our eye off the ball” in pursuing Al Qaeda and bringing stability to the region.
Some candidates had moments, meanwhile, that sounded a bit out of the presidential loop. Mitt Romney said that, if he had been president, he would have gathered information from “our C.I.A. bureau chief in Islamabad.” The Central Intelligence Agency has station chiefs, not bureau chiefs. (That said, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, invoked Mr. Reagan on Friday as a great foreign policy leader, and noted, “he was a governor, not a so-called foreign policy expert.”)
More on Romney’s Reagan moment at el Heraldo.
NYT apparently deems Ron Paul’s views not fit to print in this article, which I would tend to agree with except that the somewhat successful wackjob candidacy offers keen insight into the thinking of wacked America 2008.
The Washington Note with more on the Obama campaign’s Hillary-Iraq-Bhutto linkage, none of which does much for Obama’s foreign policy experience claims.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:16 am Comments (7) on Saturday, December 29, 2007
7 Responses to “Ghoulish Test”
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December 29th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Thank you for the rundown.
To me, it was very interesting and revealing to hear and watch each candidate’s remarks on Benazir Bhutto’s death.
Far more interesting than the repetitive “position” answers to canned questions in all the sundry canned debates.
I won’t mention Mike Huckabee’s response directly :), but, of course, his words and take did make me think I might be on Mars.
December 29th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
“Mr. Biden tried to sound presidential….”
“Mr. McCain, speaking in New Hampshire, also sought to convey leader-to-leader chemistry….”
“Senator Barack Obama of Illinois tried to sound like both a leader and a candidate….”
Because it’s all about looking presidential isn’t it? Does anybody else find that lens as incredibly annoying as I do?
December 29th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Surely*, this nation has better candidates then the ones who/whom are now seeking the office of POTUS. If not….
I for one, would like to see Pervez Musharraf, make a run. I mean he’s finished in Pakistan, why not?
OH and no doubt the ACLU, could get that little pesky thingy in the U.S. Constitution….No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.….tossed, saying it unjustly punishes the rights of people in a Global Society.
AND at the rate that the Saudis are funding Wahabbism, in the U.S….HELL Pervez could be a shoe in.
* I know, don’t call me surely.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Because it’s all about looking presidential isn’t it? Does anybody else find that lens as incredibly annoying as I do?
The press creates a meme like “looking presidential” and then all the parrots come on board.
(The presidential race should be starting about now and we’re already a year (or more) into it and burned out.)
But I did take away something in terms of the candidates sounding presidential and showing a grasp of the complexities of middle and far east (I don’t consider Pakistan “middle” east) and an understanding of Pakistan, in particular.
John McCain gave the most satisfying analysis, which surprised me, since I haven’t been drawn to him. Richard Nixon used to have the problem of wanting to be “liked” by liberals, which dogged his political career. McCain may have some of the same characteristics.
Many of the candidates seemed to see an opportunity for (even more) self aggrandizement in Bhutto’s death. As well as mouthing platitudes.
It was depressing, to say the least.
Surely :
I might vote for Pervez for US Prez. It has a nice ring.
Once, considering a possible Henry Kissinger run, there was talk of amending out the “natch-er-al born citizen” requirement.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Maybe Mr Obama could enlighten us as to why he would still be giving military aid to a country that we were getting ready to invade? Doesn’t he think that the Pakistani Army might take offense to the incursion and use the weapons purchased by the aid, against us?
I wonder if Mr. Van Winkle has any more of the potion. I need to sleep through this election.
December 29th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
“John McCain gave the most satisfying analysis, which surprised me, since I haven’t been drawn to him. ”
Not sure why that should surprise you. McCain is probably the most qualified candidate in foreign policy – and especially for the dangerous times we live in – than any non-incumbent candidate since probably Dwight Eisenhower. I may not like the rest of the package, but I cannot quibble with his foreign policy. And far from trying to appease liberals – this is the guy that went against ALL grains – Dem & Republican to push for and endorse the surge of troops in Iraq, thereby staking his whole presidential run on his principles. I don’t see him trying to appease liberals on foreign policy.
December 29th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
“But I did take away something in terms of the candidates sounding presidential and showing a grasp of the complexities of middle and far east…”
Ditto that here. The first response I heard came from Fred Thompson, who commented almost immediately after Bhutto’s death was confirmed. I thought his remarks were on point, succinct and remarkably free of the self-aggrandizing spin so evident elsewhere. I haven’t been a Fred! booster, but I find I’m liking his no-nonsense approach more all the time. I wonder whether Patrick Healy missed his comments or simply chose not to include them — an unprofessional omission either way, IMO.