An Iraq Settlement?

Sure looks like it.

There is interesting news out of Kuwait reported in Newsweek:

In remarks to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government modeled on the accords the United States has with Kuwait and many other countries.

....

[T]he new partnership deal with Iraq, including a status of forces agreement that would then replace the existing Security Council mandate authorizing the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, will become a sworn obligation for the next president. It will become just another piece of the complex global security framework involving a hundred or so countries with which Washington now has bilateral defense or security cooperation agreements.

Read it here.

Of course this is Newsweak, and their whole concern is how this arrangement will impact Hillary's and Barak's campaigns. Their sense is that it will take the whole Iraq issue off the table and weaken the Dem's campaigns. Their conclusion [and for that matter, their lead] is that Bush is playing politics and locking in an American presence in Iraq.

The upshot is that the next president, Democrat or Republican, is likely to be handed a fait accompli that could well render moot his or her own elaborate withdrawal plans, especially the ones being considered by the two leading Democratic contenders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The Clinton campaign, with obvious fore-knowledge, has already issued demands that any long-term military arrangement reached by this administration must first be approved by Congress, but with the success of the surge Bush seems to have the upper hand in any dealings with Congress. What is likely to result is a permanent security arrangement similar to those the US already has with Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Kuwait. And that is pretty much what Bush was aiming for right from the start.

And more good news:

The Iraqi government has at last reached agreement on debathification, one of the major benchmarks Congress had imposed on them. It is no longer possible to say that there has been no political progress.

From AP:

Iraq's parliament passed a benchmark law Saturday allowing lower-ranking former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to reclaim government jobs, the first major piece of U.S.-backed legislation it has adopted.

Traveling in Manama, Bahrain, President Bush hailed the law as "an important step toward reconciliation."

"It's an important sign that the leaders of that country understand that they must work together to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people," he said.

The seismic piece of legislation had been demanded by the United States since November 2006 and represented the first legislative payoff for Bush's decision to deploy 30,000 additional troops to the country to quell violence.

Read it here.

Snow in Baghdad

It snowed in Baghdad today, for the first time in over a century.

But, but, but, how can this be? Al Gore told us the globe was warming!

Read about it here.

Uwe Bol Strikes Again

The world's worst film-maker takes on Lord of the Rings, sorta.

Check it out here.

Worse than Bloodrayne? Looks like it!

Oh Leelee, how far you have fallen!

Surber Sets the Record Straight

Hillary says that Dubya damaged American relations with the rest of the world. Don Surber begs to disagree:

The idea that our allies abandoned us is more Clintonian spin.

Let's look at the facts. In the past year, Canada elected a conservative prime minister, who of course is pro-American.

Britain replaced the pro-American Tony Blair with the pro-American Gordon Brown.

And South Korea, which had an anti-American streak a mile wide in 2002, elected the retired head of Hyundai, Lee Myung-bak, as its president. He's pro-American as well.

Mrs. Clinton's ridiculous statement came less than six weeks after France elected as its president Nicolas Sarkozy, who calls himself - unabashedly - L'Americain.

....

To be sure, many are the countries that liked the Clinton administration and who now despise the Bush administration.

Some of their names are Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

Her husband's idea of international relations was to send a 6-year-old boy kicking and screaming back to Cuba.

Read the whole thing here.

Why Obama Lost?

Are New Hampshire voters victims of fraud, are they closet racists, or are they just plain lazy? Those are the theories being floated to explain the fact that polls predicted an Obama landslide, but the vote went to Hillary.

This morning on MSNBC Chris Matthews was touting the liberal line that the reason the polls in New Hampshire were so much in error was due to the "Bradley Rule". The "rule" holds that American voters are racists who are ashamed of their racism so they lie to pollsters [who can identify them personally] about their willingness to vote for a black man, but later in the anonymity of the voting booth vote white.

This is plausible on the face of it, especially since the Iowa caucus vote, which was public, went heavily for Obama. However there are alternative explanations.

Radicals nutroot types are blaming it on fraud, saying that Diebold stole the election for Hillary. [here]

But Matt Braynard has a different explanation, also plausible. It was a combination of celebrity, which led marginal voters to have a momentary enthusiasm for Obama, which was picked up in the polls, but not enough enthusiasm to actually go to the polls for him. [here]

Which explanation you favor says a lot about how you view America and Americans.

Not surprisingly, the "racist" line is popular in Europe and on MSNBC.

Too Much, Too Much!

A couple of months ago I wrote up a few movie reviews, but never got around to posting them. Now I see that some of the films are out on DVD, so here goes.

In a recent film review I noted that “The Bourne Ultimatum” was, like many action films, little more than a cartoon, and a primitive one at that. This was hardly a new idea. Action heroes like “the Governator” have built their careers out of playing what are essentially cartoon characters. The idea has been frequently satirized, most brilliantly in “Run Lola Run”, and Asian studios have turned out what seems to be an endless series of cartoonish action spoofs, some of them quite entertaining. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for “Shoot em Up”, a Clive Owen actioner that tanked at the box office.

At the end of his performances Lenny Bruce used to famously ask, “Is there anyone here I haven’t insulted?” Michael Davis, writer and director of "Shoot em Up" might ask the same. What he has cooked up is neither a satire nor a parody, it is a travesty. The narrative involves Clive Owen as a reluctant but supernaturally skilled gunman who fights off hordes of other killers to protect a baby which is being nursed by Monica Bellucci, who plays a whore with huge functional mammaries and a heart of gold. In the end the film plays bait and switch with the audience, trying to portray this over the top shooter as an idiotic anti-gun screed. Along the way it parodies Asian action cinema (especially the films of John Woo) Warner Brothers cartoons (especially Bugs and Yosemite Sam), classic gangster flicks, conspiracy theories, the NRA, motherhood and the nuclear family, and a host of other cultural and political points of reference. A couple of these might have been effective, but taken together they are too much, too much! The whole thing is a mess. Avoid it; everybody else has.

3:10 to Yuma is a better, and ultimately a more disappointing, picture. It is an above average oater that could have been great. In its original 1957 incarnation, starring Glen Ford and Van Heflin, the film was an elegant morality drama, a starkly drawn confrontation between cinematic embodiments of charismatic evil and stolid rectitude. In the process of their hours together both men discover resources hidden within themselves that make the unexpected climax both satisfactory and thrilling.

In the remake the basic story line is still there, but it has been gussied up with all sorts of post-modern affectations that ultimately render the whole thing incoherent and idiotic. Instead of the stark, modernist, morality play portraying the clash of opposites, we have a host of subplots, themes, and diversionary images, many of them just plain disgusting. There are exploding vehicles, a torture scene, a man burned to death in a blazing stagecoach, several sadistic killings, a homosexual subtext, a father/son drama, a man struggling with self-esteem issues, several pathological killers, an interminable shoot-out, and an incomprehensible and incredibly stupid resolution that saps all the moral content from what went before. Too much, too much!

The film is a mess, but it is at least partially redeemed by superb acting. Russell Crowe is our best living male actor and he is back on form here. Christian Bale, in a restrained but tension-filled role presents a marvelous counterpart to Crowe’s seductive evil. And Ben Foster is simply wonderful as the sadistic, homosexual primary villain. Ultimately the story doesn’t matter much. What we have is a showcase for actors, and they deliver. This alone makes “3:10 to Yuma” worth the price of admission.

“Too much, too much!” could be said about another Clive Owen vehicle “She” dragged me to see. “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” is a chick flick, a Harlequin Romance version of history, dealing with one of the most fascinating figures of all time – Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen.” Once again we have top-flight actors at the top of their game in an emotionally extravagant melodrama and they respond appropriately. Cate Blanchett chews the scenery as Liz, Clive Owen smolders sexily as Raleigh, and Geoffrey Rush is a dark, stabilizing presence as Walsingham, keeping the other principals in check. Once again we have a ridiculously over-loaded script that requires the principal actors to behave absurdly, and once again I left the theater mumbling, "Too much, too much".

The Greatest Man Alive

Technology Review has a nice piece on the greatest American of our lifetimes, perhaps of all times -- Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution". He is certainly the greatest living humanitarian, the man who has done more than anyone ever (you heard me, "ever") to save human lives. There are hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people alive today simply because of what this man has done.

Never heard of him? Don't worry, most people haven't. As TR notes:

Last year, ABC, CBS, and NBC cameras were absent when Borlaug was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal. And alas, Borlaug's friend and biographer Leon Hesser has now produced a prosaic work that, while good on his hero's early years, fades as Borlaug appears on the international stage. Borlaug deserves better, but when journalist Gregg Easterbrook sought a publisher for a popular biography, "they said he was boring," the self-described "environmental optimist" says. "If he'd killed someone instead of saving hundreds of millions of lives, then they'd have been interested."

Read the whole article here.

Could it be that it is because his entire career has been an open repudiation of the declinist cant that is currently fashionable. Come to think of it -- has there ever been a time when predictions of impending doom have been out of fashion?

The only negative thing I can think to say about this great man is that he counts among his friends Jimmy Carter.

She's Baaaaaaaaaack!

Just like Jason Voorhees Hillary Clinton has risen from the dead to plague us once again. She defeated upstart Barak Obama by turning out the Democratic base -- union members, old folks, and single women [blacks weren't a factor in lily-white New Hampshire].

What made it possible? Maybe it was her teary-eyed solipsism when she declared that the political struggle was a personal quest. Maybe it was her veiled racist appeals [read about it here]. Maybe it was her last-minute revival of the abortion issue. Maybe it was just that some voters were having second thoughts about that nice-looking, articulate young man who opposed her and about whom nobody seemed to know very much. Whatever, the prospects for putting the horrid Clintons and their endless soap opera behind us are now going a glimmering.

AAAARRRRRGH!

UPDATE!

Maybe I blogged too soon. Things seem to be closing fast. Her lead over Obama is down to 2% with 17% of the votes left to count. This could wind up as a virtual tie.

UPDATE:

Well, I see I was wrong -- the final margin was 3%. Not much, but enough to get the job done. Barak's giddy career into national prominence will begin to fade, Hillary will be nominated, and we will have to suffer her and her horrid hubby for years to come.

Now I'm depressed.

Hunting in Center City Philly

"She Who Must Not Be Named" and I have been hanging out in Center City Philly recently. I was down there to present a paper at an academic conference. She just tagged along. Yesterday, during a break in the conference I took a stroll through the historical district, and this is what I saw.



Ain't he a beaut? The biggest, fattest red-tailed hawk I've seen in a long time. Right across the street from the Omni. Hunting must be good downtown -- pigeons, squirrels, small yappy dogs....

While we watched, something caught his attention.



And he launched himself at a squirrel in a nearby tree.


The squirrel was lucky -- the hawk missed, just barely. But there will be other opportunities, other squirrels, a fat pigeon perhaps, and if he's lucky, a small tourist....

The Tyranny of Scientific Consensus

The corruption of scientific authority is widespread, but most marked in the fields of medical and environmental science. Consider the response to the findings of two researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Katherine Flegal and David Williamson, who suggested that the death toll attributed by the government to excessive weight was greatly exaggerated.

In a 2005 study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association, Flegal, Williamson, and two other researchers reported that people the government considers “overweight” have lower mortality rates than people with supposedly “healthy” weights. They were criticized not so much for being wrong as for being unhelpful. “Your patients likely did not read the original article,” said an editorial in the journal Obesity Management, “but they did likely hear about it in the news and the message they got was not to worry so much about overweight and obesity. I do not think this is the message you want them to have.” That response was typical, Flegal tells Kolata: “Everyone thinks they already know the answer.…All these people who just know weight loss is good for you. It’s just taken for granted regardless of the evidence.”

Read about it here.

This is why the pronouncements of scientific authority must be taken with several heaping tablespoons of salt. This does not mean that scientists should be ignored, but they should not be blindly followed either.

The Misinterpreters

The NYT, of all rags, has a nice piece on "availability entrepreneurs" who systematically misinterpret phenomena to support their ideological or careerist biases. Who is the most conspicuous practitioner of this malignant misrepresentation of reality? Why, it's Al Gore, of course, although you could have pointed to nearly any figure on the Left.

Read it here.

Movies

I have not seen Juno and probably won't for a while. "She Who Must Not Be Named" saw a documentary feature on the writer, a former stripper with the felicitous name of "Diablo Cody", and was so turned off that she absolutely refuses to see anything with which the woman is associated.

As for me, nothing I have seen in print makes me want to see the film. It is described as "quirky" -- I hate quirky. The main character is often compared to Janeane Garofolo -- another turnoff. Another point of comparison is "Napoleon Dynamite", which bored me. I have long since learned that the sort of characters and predicaments that amuse most major critics leave me cold. I, for instance, intensely disliked "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

So, neither "She" nor I have much interest in seeing this film.

I probably will eventually see it, on the Indie channel or such, but for now I have better things to do with my time and money.

Still, it has some interest in that it has stirred up a lot of controversy. It is the third film this year in which a young woman, faced with an unwanted pregnancy, has chosen to bear the child rather than kill it. The first, Waitress, was a clumsy affair that gained a lot of sympathy support because of the horrific fate of its creator; the second, Knocked Up, was basically a stupid slacker/stoner comedy, redeemed by the incandescent presence of mega babe Katherine Heigl. Now comes Juno. Three films in the same year, all with a pro-life bias! That has the tongues wagging in California.

What is more, Juno, was written and produced by the very kind of non-conformist hipster types so much beloved by left-wing critics. Who could be more non-conformist than stripper, sex phone operator, Diablo? What could be more hip than the fusion of Janeane Garofolo and Napoleon Dynamite? Yet, its message is pro-life!!! How can that be? The suits in Hollywood want to know. The fate of future projects hangs in the balance.

What is for me most interesting, though, is that the film is causing consternation on the Left. Lefty commentators want to like the film [Roger Ebert picked it as best film of the year] but hate, hate, hate, its message, and it is fun to watch them torturing logic attempting to argue that the film really isn't pro-life.

For insights into this debate I refer you to this commentary by Ann Hulbert in Slate, and this response to her piece by Ross Douthat in the Atlantic, and this response to Douthat's response in the New Republic.

Clearly the cultural Left senses a threat -- and is currently in a state of denial. Suddenly they find themselves not only on the wrong side of the real war [note the repeated failure of anti-war polemics] but they now seem to be losing the culture wars. As Hulbert notes with some dismay, teen births are trending up.

Hmmm, maybe I should see this thing after all.

Meanwhile I caught a couple of critically-acclaimed flicks on late-night TV recently. The first is The Wind that Shakes the Barley which won big at Cannes.

Barley is a political tract disguised as a movie. It is beautifully photographed, by Barry Ackroyd, and features some first-rank actors, notably Cillian Murphy. But the writing is atrocious, the staging clumsy, and the film lacks any interesting personal dimensions. It is nothing more than a political statement -- either a blatantly biased indictment of the British occupation of Ireland or [for the historically illiterate] of the American occupation in Iraq -- that has garnered critical praise simply on that basis. It offers nothing more.

At more than two hours in length Barley stretches on long after its major points have been made. The personal drama lacks any intensity. In short -- it is boring. For anyone who is not an IRA partisan or who has not succumbed to Bush Derangement Syndrome it is a complete waste of time.

The other movie I saw late at night was Keeping Mum, a black comedy out of Britain staring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and [I'm not kidding] Patrick Swayze. The Brits used to do this sort of thing extremely well and, considering the cast, I had high hopes for Mum. Unfortunately they were unrealized. The plot, involving a nice old lady who happens to be a serial killer, a long-buried secret, and an adulterous affair, just never really gets off the ground. The jokes were obvious and clumsily presented. There are flashes of brilliance from the actors, but they just aren't given enough to work with and for the most part the movie drags. Their talents are wasted in this meager and unoriginal effort.

Black comedy as a genre reached its peak half a century ago. A film like Mum reminds us of the good old days and how far we have fallen.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May the coming year bring health, prosperity, and happiness to all!

Ritenour's Night Rhythms

Last night when I got too tired to do much else, I just leaned back and listened to Lee Ritenour. Here's an example of his work, "Night Rhythms".



Now ain't that nice? Think about it, this guy started off playing backup for "The Mamas and the Papas".

Fred's Message

For all you Fredheads out there, here's Fred Thompson's final address to the people of Iowa. Check it out.

Shelby Steele on Obama

One of the most interesting writers on race relations in America is Shelby Steele, winner of the National Book Critic's Circle Award, currently a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. He has produced a book that attempts to define the historical importance of the Obama campaign. In Barak Obama, he argues, Americans for the first time have an opportunity to escape from the stereotypical relationships that have dominated our civil discourse for more than half a century.

George Will summarizes:

In "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win," Steele, of Stanford's Hoover Institution, argues that Obama "embodies" -- an apposite word -- the idea that race can be "a negligible human difference." His candidacy asks America to complete its maturation as a society free from all "collective chauvinisms" about race.

Read Will's review of Steele's book here.

This is a daring and exciting vision, one that in no small part explains the enthusiastic reception Obama has received from both Black and White Americans. It also explains why this campaign is so important. It does not, however, provide much reason to elect this young and untried person to the presidency.

Dessert

Got together with my brother and his wife the other day. We all went out to a new restaurant that has opened in the Harbor East section of the city -- Cinghiale, owned by Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman of Charleston fame. Good northern Italian cuisine. My brother and my wife, food snobs both of them, were suitably impressed. So was I.

Here's what I had for dessert -- their version of pumpkin pie [NOT authentic northern Italian].



Good taste, interesting presentation, but mom's was better.

Pious Nonsense and the Bhutto Assassination

The narratives are taking shape.

Here in the US the MSM are working hard to portray Bhutto as a secular saint, an enlightened, liberal, Westernized vision of the perfect moderate Muslim. This image serves the political interests of both Democrats and Republicans.

For Republicans Bhutto serves as a reminder of the global nature of the war on terror, the continued puissance of our enemies and the need to maintain our efforts to marginalize and destroy them. For Democrats she represents a crushed hope for effective political action that would promote democratic reforms throughout the Muslim world.

Ms. Bhutto was, for many, a living symbol of their naive faith that political and diplomatic, rather than military action would be sufficient to bring about fundamental change in Pakistan. Her death revives the argument that Muslims just "aren't ready" for democracy and therefore attempts to bring liberal reform to the region cannot succeed.

In the more despicable and deranged precincts of the Left there is a determined attempt to lay the blame for her demise on President Bush and to revive the long discredited "take your eye off the ball" theory as a means of increasing the plausibility of their cherished myth of administration incompetence.

There is little attempt outside the blogosphere to come to some realistic understanding of the deceased and what she represented to Pakistanis. The sanitized image of a secular saint is far too useful to too many political interests. But amongst bloggers a very different picture of Mrs. Bhutto is beginning to emerge.

Yesterday I linked to commentary by Mark Steyn, Andrew McCarthy and "Spook 86" that punctured the "freedom fighter" image Bhutto so carefully constructed in her tireless and promiscuous courtship of media figures [sometimes it seems that there isn't an anchor alive who has not interviewed her].

Today Ralph Peters fills out the picture:

FOR the next several days, you're going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Her country's better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.

We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.

She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and "hardheaded" journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat.

In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani. Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.

There's much more. Read the whole thing here.

What is most depressing in the current situation is the willingness, even eagerness, of people who staff our major political and journalistic institutions to spin politically useful fantasies rather than to take a hard look at the real state of the world.

UPDATE:

Roger Kimball has a nice roundup on attempts to apotheosize Bhutto over at Pajamas Media [here]. In his mind the worst of these efforts was penned by the insufferably absurd Bernard-Henri Levy (who for some reason is beloved by the PBS crowd). I particularly like this passage:

Doubtless the Augean stables of sentimentality have more in store for us on this subject. But to date, Bernard-Henri Levy’s intervention is the most appalling piece of sentimentalizing rubbish since irresponsible journalists abetted the transformation of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales from a nuisance for the Paris tunnel cleaners into an international embarrassment.

"Nuisance for the Paris tunnel cleaners" -- I love it!

Steyn on Bhutto

Mark Steyn, who used to live next door to Bhutto, has some wise observations on her demise and the self-serving illusion Western politicians and pundits seem to harbor. I quote in full:

Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan had a mad recklessness about it which give today's events a horrible inevitability. As I always say when I'm asked about her, she was my next-door neighbor for a while - which affects a kind of intimacy, though in fact I knew her only for sidewalk pleasantries. She was beautiful and charming and sophisticated and smart and modern, and everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be - though in practice, as Pakistan's Prime Minister, she was just another grubby wardheeler from one of the world's most corrupt political classes.

Since her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation. "Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything," I wrote last month. "It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate." The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They'd arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a "united" "democratic" "movement" and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them. That's what diplomats do: They find guys in suits and get 'em round a table. But none of those representatives represents the rapidly evolving reality of Pakistan. Miss Bhutto could never have been a viable leader of a post-Musharraf settlement, and the delusion that she could have been sent her to her death. Earlier this year, I had an argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir's, who swatted my concerns aside with the sweeping claim that "the whole of the western world" was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee.

As I said, she was everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be. We should be modest enough to acknowledge when reality conflicts with our illusions.

Rest in peace, Benazir.

Read it here.

Also in NRO, Andy McCarthy notes that in a recent public opinion poll conducted in Pakistan Osama bin Laden received a 46% approval rating.

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.

The real Pakistan is a breeding ground of Islamic holy war where, for about half the population, the only thing more intolerable than Western democracy is the prospect of a faux democracy led by a woman....

So much for Joe Biden's neo-con fantasy.

And as for those who assert that we stand with the Pakistani people, McCarthy writes:

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence — the symbol, however dubious, of democracy’s promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf — as if he were the problem — can camouflage that fact.

In Pakistan, it is the regime that propounds Western values, such as last year’s reform of oppressive, Sharia-based Hudood laws, which made rape virtually impossible to prosecute — a reform enacted despite furious fundamentalist rioting that was, shall we say, less well covered in the Western press. The regime, unreliable and at times infuriating, is our only friend. It is the only segment of Pakistani society capable of confronting militant Islam — though its vigor for doing so is too often sapped by its own share of jihadist sympathizers.

So much for those, including President Bush, who are pressuring Musharraf to enact radical reform. Read it here.

And as for the sainted image of Mrs. Bhutto, Spook 86 notes:

The folks on NBC... are making it sound as if Bhutto was some brave liberal alternative to the Musharraf regime, swallowing hook, line, and sinker this narrative that Benazir Bhutto was some kind of Pakistani Aung San Suu Kyi.

Okay, folks, we all know she was eloquent, went to Harvard and Oxford and was a darling of the English-language media. But she was arguably the most corrupt woman in the history of South Asia. She was removed from office not once but twice on corruption charges. And ruthless? She killed her own brother in 1996.

Read it here.

What stands out, once again, is that John McCain has good information on Pakistan and Bhutto and has his priorities straight.

Romney is also well-informed, unlike the Democratic candidates, but is in a tight point because he, together with President Bush, called on Musharraf to life martial law, which he did, and it could be argued that the lifting of marital law made this kind of tragedy more likely. Romney is sensibly impressive, but this is McCain's hour.

Here's Romney's response.



And here is McCain's.



Most of the rest are just plain embarrassing.

UPDATE:

Here's Thompson's response. He's got all the big things right, especially the fact that we are in a war of global extent. He and Romney understand the stakes, but this is still McCain's hour.

UPDATE:

The Republicans, including belatedly Huckabee, have got their talking point in order [I haven't heard what Paul has to say, it doesn't matter anyhow]. The assassination is now being cast by all as an incident in the global war on terror. Democrats, however, are still flopping around trying to find a point of agreement. Ed Morrissy has a roundup here.

Note: there has been an attempt on the part of the Left to blame this all on Bush. No surprise there. None of the Democratic candidates has, however, embraced that position, although Huckabee in his early mouthings came close. He really is the second coming of Jimmah Carter.

UPDATE:

Fred is on Hannity & Colmes right now, sounding good. He's a serious guy. Too bad he won't be President.

Bhutto Assassinated

This is HUGE! Not only does it destabilize Pakistan, a nuclear power, but it threatens the security of all South Asia. Reporters on the scene are saying that conspiracy theories are rife. Bhutto's supporters are blaming Musharraf, Western observers blame Islamist radicals. I tend toward the latter view.

Whoever is at fault, this is a major victory for the Islamists, who have been under enormous pressure everywhere. Bhutto was pro-US, as was Musharraf. This knocks both of them out. The domestic turmoil that is sure to ensue will provide al Qaeda and their allies with lots of opportunities. The best that can be hoped for is that a pro-Western military strongman will impose order, but that feeds into the Islamist narrative too.

One small positive note: this transforms Bhutto into a martyr -- one with a pro-Western bias.

The Telegraph has an excellent obituary on this remarkable woman [here].

John Podhoretz notes [here] that this has big implications for the American political process. It is a slap in the face to naifs like Obama and Huckabee, both of whom have been pushing simplistic foreign policy lines.

It takes attention away from Hillary's domestic pandering. It serves as a reminder of just how dangerous the world is, and it boosts the credentials of John McCain who is the only candidate in either party who can be taken seriously on foreign policy grounds. Already, before 11:00 am, he is on FOX calling for stability and sounding presidential.

Hillary is on the tube sympathizing with the Bhutto family, especially the children, emphasizing the fact that she knew and corresponded with Bhutto, and calling for the Pakistani people to reject violence and to embrace democracy. She touts her "experience" and claims to be the only candidate ready to take charge from "day one." She refers to Obama as "naive".

McCain is back on with a statement. The contrast between him and Hillary is stark. She hits family themes, claims experience, but does no more than to call upon the Pakistani people to embrace democracy, then returns immediately to domestic politics. McCain is talking about the threat to Pakistan and the region, on the need to maintain order, reminds us that he knew Bhutto personally and also knows Musharraf, talks about extending aid to the Pakistani government and consulting with the UN and with regional powers. He sounds competent and presidential, she doesn't.

Bush made a very brief and formal statement, expressing condolences to all those who lost family members in the attack and calling for order and a commitment to democratic principles.

UPDATE:

Michael Ledeen reports that al Qaeda is taking credit for the assassination, claiming to have eliminated a major American asset in the region. [here]

Giuliani has no trouble identifying this with al Qaeda and takes a tough line. He calls for close cooperation with Musharraf and emphasizes the need to stay on offense against Islamic terrorism. The most important thing is to maintain the stability of the country. Things like democracy are important, but right now the most important thing is to maintain stability. Once we get through the crisis we can sit down and think about long-term responses, but for now keep the focus on stability. He emphasizes that it is a difficult situation and nobody has much information on what is going on. This is not a time for precipitous action.

Obama reminds people to turn out for the caucuses, then briefly states that the US is resolute in support of democracy and against terrorism. Nothing else.

The contrast that is emerging is interesting, and perhaps significant. Hillary was first out of the box with a statement, but it was unfocused and not very informative. She simply asserted that she had experience and her rivals didn't. McCain was also quick off the mark and had more details. He favors a regional approach with UN involvement to maintain stability. Giuliani emphasizes the need to hit back at the terrorists, and to keep the pressure on them.

Bill Richardson, who has real foreign policy credentials, had the most stupid response. He called on Bush to force Mussharaf to relinquish power and (get this) to withhold all military aid to Pakistan. Just what he expects to emerge from that I can't imagine.

Biden calls for holding the elections and putting extreme pressure on Musharraf to make certain that they are clean and free. His hope is that the moderate middle-class secularists will assert themselves and establish a liberal regime. He's even more of a democratic idealist than he has accused Bush of being.

Romney called for the leaders of the "civilized" nations to come together in support of moderate Islamic leaders and regimes to marginalize radical extremists. He, like McCain, identifies the problem not with the Pakistani regime so much as with the radical Islamists.

This is the great testing time for Pakistan. The assassination of Bhutto is an event comparable to the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Iraq that set off more than a year of terrible internecine war. The question is whether Pakistan can carry through the current crisis, maintain some degree of stability, refrain from civil war, and make progress toward functioning democracy. If so, the future for Islam and for democracy is bright. If not, the possibility that Islamists will gain control of nuclear weapons is much greater.

Basically the responses of the major candidates fall into three groups -- realists, headed by Giuliani, who look to Musharraf and the military to maintain stability; internationalists like Romney who look to a consortium of nations and international agencies to control the situation; and democratic idealists like Richardson and Biden, who look for a spontaneous rising of the secular middle classes once the current regime is brought down. The only figure with a realistic approach is McCain who recognizes the necessary role of the army in maintaining stability, who advocates increasing rather than cutting off aid to the troubled nation, and who wants to work with international, particularly regional, institutions to ease the transition to a stable, democratic regime. Hillary, unfortunately, sounds merely confused. She doesn't handle crisis well, and this weakness is starting to show to the extent that people are beginning to notice.

Oh, what about Huckabee? He's praying for the people of Pakistan.

Some thoughts:

What sticks out is how much the prescriptions offered by Biden and Richardson resemble those of the "neo-cons" prior to the Iraq invasion. They argue, in essence, that if the tyrant is deposed a secular, liberal regime will spontaneously emerge. Yeah!

The diversity of responses highlights the lack of anything remotely resembling a consensus in this country on matters of foreign affairs.