Thursday, December 27, 2007

Bhutto

As tragic as the news from Pakistan is, I think the discussion about which American politician will benefit the most from Benazir Bhutto's assassination is ridiculous.

Most Americans would be hard-pressed to give the correct answer to the following question:

Benazir Bhutto was the former prime minister of what country?

A. Afghanistan

B. Kazakhstan

C. Pakistan

D. India

E. Iraq
Pakistan is so far from the minds of most American voters that I cannot believe the time, energy and ink being expended on the question of how the assassination will affect the presidential race.

There is a strong case to be made that the Bush administration's policy toward Pakistan is consistent with the broader failure of its approach to international relations. In that context, I suppose someone could connect the dots in such a fashion as to argue that the further a candidate plans to distance him- or herself from Bush's strategy, the better.

But trying to cram this incident into the horserace frame of the presidential contest is just silly. Nobody cares.

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