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Notable, quotable

A leading presidential candidate appears to be likening President Musharraf of Pakistan to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who is widely thought to have ordered the assassination of disobedient former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri several years ago:

I don’t think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all…I’m calling for a full, independent, international investigation, perhaps along the lines of what the United Nations has been doing with respect to the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri in Lebanon.

The logic of Senator Clinton’s statement is that Assad is to Hariri as Musharraf is to Bhutto. Are we missing something or should this be a scandal of some sort? Isn’t Syria an enemy and Pakistan an ally? How would a Clinton presidency in 2009 deal with President Musharraf, who, like him or loathe him, has a tremendously difficult and complex situation on his hands?

UPDATE

Oops. We didn’t realize that accusing and getting rid of Musharraf was considered conventional wisdom among some of the Democratic presidential contenders.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, Religion, Republicans, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Notable, quotable”

  1. teqjack Says:
    December 31st, 2007 at 1:33 pm

    Calling for an external investigation of the assassination seems premature, however much mistrust I may feel of President Musharraf. Mrs. Bhutto was targeted many times over the years, by a number of enemies.

  2. gs Says:
    December 31st, 2007 at 3:22 pm

    Clinton compares the putative investigation of the Bhutto assassination to the Hariri investigation. She doesn’t accuse Musharraf of involvement–just like her campaign didn’t accuse Obama of cocaine use.

    IMO the framing of the video is intended to bring the Oval Office subliminally to mind: Presidential Hillary in sober black, with the American flag in the background.

    Like it or not, Musharraf is our ally; with all his deliberate and intrinsic deficiencies, he is in a dangerous position. My recent impression of Hillary was

    Huck and Hill have mean streaks, but I fear they’d use them against their domestic opponents, and meanwhile placate foreign enemies.

    Maybe I didn’t do her justice. She seems entirely willing to use her mean streak against our besieged allies.

    Peggy Noonan warns:

    …My central problem is that the next American president will very likely face another big bad thing, a terrible day, or days, and in that time it will be crucial–crucial–that our nation be led by a man or woman who can be, at least for the moment and at least in general, trusted. Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include Nixon. Would she be able to speak the nation through the trauma? I do not think so. And if I am right, that simple fact would do as much damage to America as the terrible thing itself.

    I am coming to agree. I’d been resigned to an unwelcome but competent Clinton presidency, but, as Hillary campaigns, my impression is that her first and overriding reaction to a crisis would be to use it to expand her power.

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