Just hours after news broke of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Clinton and Obama issued statements about the killing and their ability to handle a crisis. Clinton went on about her personal relationship with Bhutto and drew a comparison between herself and the slain former PM of Pakistan.
"I have known Benazir Bhutto for more than 12 years; she's someone whom I was honored to visit as first lady when she was prime minister," Clinton said at a campaign event in a firehouse in western Iowa. "Certainly on a personal level, for those of us who knew her, who were impressed by her commitment, her dedication, her willingness to pick up the mantle of her father, who was also assassinated, it is a terrible, terrible tragedy," she said.
The Obama camp made remarks that insinuated Clinton, Bush, The United States and the War in Iraq were to blame for the assassination.
In an especially charged moment, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod would later tie the killing to the Iraq war — and Clinton's vote to approve it, which he argued diverted U.S resources from fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, both al-Qaeda hotbeds.
"You can't at once argue that you're the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it," Obama said. "You can't fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America." [...]"Obama opposed the war in Iraq explicitly because he feared it would divert our attention from al-Qaeda, Pakistan, the whole region," Axelrod said. "It underscores the fact that you have to have a president who understands the world, who is going to analyze these events, and who will chart the right course, counter to the conventional thinking."
Man, I wish I were a fly on the wall when Hillary heard about those comments. Benazir Bhutto was elected the Islamic world's first woman prime minister in 1988, but was fired 20 months later on corruption accusations by the country's military-backed president. She was elected again in 1993, only to be removed again three years later. Bhutto was murdered yesterday by a suicide attacker while campaigning to become PM for a third time. Looks to me like she was a marked woman long before we went to Iraq. Of course, that's just me. Maybe I'm just blinded by my obsessive love for Bush, Clinton and shoes.
R.I.P. Steven Malcolm Anderson
Minion
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This is the second time Obama's mouth has got him into trouble vis-a-vis Pakistan. Axelrod's a hack, but Hillary's number one guy, Mark Penn, is a disgusting slob, the Jabba the Hut of Politics who not only looks the part, but uses the same ham-handedness that you'd expect from a corpulent half ton slug. I wouldn't have thought twice about this coming from him, but not camp Obama.
Obama knows better, at least he should, but he's evidently let the heat of the primaries get to him.
"Hope" is not a policy. "I told you so" is not a solution. Much as I hate Mark Penn (and I do), he rarely pisses me off as much as Axelrod did yesterday. This took the cake. Illogical, opportunistic, exploitive, and in bad taste.
Seriously though, this is a major blow to democracy in the Islamic world in general, Pakistan specifically. It's also a massive set back for women in politics in the Islamic world. While I can't say I've agreed with some of the lines she took in office (and while exiled), she was a strong, intelligent woman working to better her nation. We should all be so lucky to have a woman like that in our corner, hell a politician like that in our corner.
I like shoes.
Or that Mitt Romney is upgrading his tan on the islands.
Yeah well, tell it to this guy. At least Obama didn’t say she (or any other woman) isn’t “up to the job.”
Anyway, that’s just an anti-Obama right-wing canard (and, in addition to Fred, they're running Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, for God's sake). The fact that Obama was never married to the POTUS doesn’t make him unqualified and he has certainly shown better judgment than Hillary in foreign affairs. Or don’t you think the country and the world would be a wee bit better off if we hadn’t invaded Iraq?
Clinton may have met more world leaders but experience is only useful if it leads to wiser decision-making. This suggests that Hillary: a) doesn’t learn well from her experience and b) is more aligned with the disastrous neoconservatives and establishment morons than any other Democratic candidate, including Obama. And those neoconservative policies (including propping up that miscreant tyrant Musharraf – who may have actually had Bhutto assassinated), aided and abetted by Clinton and others, have destabilizing the ME to the brink of catastrophe.