Bhutto in Pakistan
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The American nutroots received a few rather unpleasant jolts of reality over the past few days.
First, a major campaign financing scandal erupted, tarnishing all the major Democratic candidates with the allegation of acceptance of seriously tainted money. Large amounts of the filthy stuff.
Then, despite all the hew and cry from the leftist lunatics about how George Bush is evil and the whole damn country knows it, the House (despite its Democratic majority) failed to override President Bush's veto of the child healthcare reform proposals (despite Bush recently recording the lowest-ever public approval ratings for a president, the House's approval rating is half that of Bush). The New York Times reports: "Despite a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign and intense lobbying by children's advocates, supporters of the bill were unable to convert a single House Republican who voted against the bill last month." On top of that, it began to appear that the Republicans would dominate the upcoming Louisiana governor's race.
Doubtless, the nutroots will still carry on with their insane drumbeat about all Republicans being evil, the party in disarray, feeling the president like plague. Because why let facts get in the way of a good psychotic rant.
Michelle Malkin 3, Daily Kos 0.
And then Ms. Bhutto was back in Pakistan. No sooner had she arrived than Al-Quaeda launched a suicide attack against her. FOX reports that "President Gen. Pervez Musharraf labeled the attack part of a 'conspiracy against democracy,' reaching out to the former prime minister with whom he is trying to forge a pro-U.S., anti-militant alliance." Over 100 innocent people were killed. On October 5th, Musharraf signed a corruption amnesty edict covering prior politically-motivated charges against Bhutto, opening the way for her return and a possible power-sharing agreement. In 1988, at the age of 35, Bhutto had been elected the first female leader of a Muslim country in world history.
Now, of course, the nutroots will blame President Bush for having failed to wipe Al-Quaeda off the face of the earth. They'll ignore the fact that Bill Clinton did nothing whatsoever to deal with them during his eight years in power. They'll ignore the fact that the U.S. homeland has been 100% free of terrorism events since 9/11, an event that was brewed and planned while Clinton was president. And most of all, they'll fail to come forward with any specific, coherent plan to deal with violent anti-democratic, anti-American (don't the two almost always go together) forces in Pakistan, or anywhere else for that matter. Criticize Bush's plan to deal with Al-Quaeda all you like, you know what it is. What's Hillary's plan? What's Obama's? Hard to say, isn't it.
As the Bits of News blog states:
Given the press that Pakistan has received of late and the way in which much of the country is perceived by the west, the reaction to Benazir Bhutto's triumphant return is a marker of why this country's soul is worth fighting for. Despite having a traditionally conservative population and an administration which has upheld laws which severely limit women's rights (the Koranic Hudood and Zina ordinances, for instance), hundreds of thousands of men and women alike were nevertheless willing to turn out to cheer on a woman whom they perceived to be their political saviour. It is now just as it was when Mrs Bhutto was still Prime Minister -- the fact that she is a woman, to a majority of Pakistanis, simply does not seem to matter. Furthermore, that she represents, for the time being, the country's single best hope of re-establishing democracy seems to be of infinitely more importance.
To put it more simply: If Al-Quaeda hates someone that much, they can't be all bad. This girl got game. Just when things start to look a little bleak for democracy's prospects, one of these breathtaking heroes steps forward, willing to literally risk it all, staring dictatorship in the eye, unblinking.
It's thrilling.
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