Surely Hillary doesn't think we are stupid. (And don't call me Shirley....)
Or perhaps dumbing down the whole complicated Pakistani government time bomb plays well in Des Moines, where Hills is currently "handling" the Iowa caucus goers with watered down political kibble.
Or is it entirely possible that HRC is not as foreign policy savvy as she would like us all to believe?
Thomas Houlahan asks that very question, recently snagging the Senator on a couple of glaringly incorrect Middle East guffaws.
In his op-ed for the Middle East Times, the director of the Military Assessment Program at the Center for Security and Science questioned his own hearing after watching Clinton-Blitzer one-on-one rhapsodic after the Bhutto assassination.
Clinton stated she didn't think that "the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all." She continued with, "If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow."
Houlahan did a Hanna-Barbera-worthy double take.
My immediate reaction was: "Did I hear that correctly?"
As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn't wish to stand for election any time soon.
The upcoming elections are for the next parliament. Musharraf was just elected president of Pakistan, overwhelmingly, by popularly elected electors on Oct. 6. He's just begun his five-year term as the president of the country. Why would he ever want to run for one seat in parliament? It wouldn't make sense.
However, I checked the transcript of the interview later. That's exactly what she said.
My next reaction was: "Maybe she misspoke. Candidates do a lot of interviews. Not every sentence comes out the way they want it to."
After all, Sen. Clinton is a candidate who is running claiming big-time foreign policy knowledge and experience that she says her closest opponents in the Democratic Primary don't have.
Houlahan gave her the benefit of the doubt.
But not the second time.
ABC's This Week aired a George Stephanopoulos-Clinton interview that underscored the observation Houlahan had chalked up to misspeak.
Referring to a possible delay in the elections, Sen. Clinton said: "I think it will be very difficult to have a real election. You know, Nawaz Sharif (leader of the PML-N, an opposition party) has said he's not going to compete. The PPP is in disarray with Benazir's assassination. He (President Pervez Musharraf) could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election."
Houlahan documented his Holy Crap! moment of clarity.
Sen. Clinton really didn't know that the upcoming elections were for individual seats in Pakistan's parliament. She actually believed that Bhutto, Nawaz and Musharraf would be facing off as individual candidates for leadership of the country in the upcoming elections.
Sen. Clinton didn't know that Nawaz Sharif isn't allowed to run for office in Pakistan because of a felony conviction. She didn't know that President Musharraf won't be on the ballot because he's already been elected.
Sen. Clinton, a candidate for the leadership of the free world, apparently doesn't know the first thing about the country referred to by some as "the most dangerous place on earth."
HOLY CRAP.
While addressing the Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, January 19, 2006, Clinton spoke to the American values "that should govern America's engagement in the Middle East."
"Perhaps nowhere is the need for that leadership and vision greater than in the Middle East...The values are straightforward, shared by most Americans whether they have spent a lifetime studying the region or, like most of us, learning about it through the headlines or in some personal experience."
I'd like to know from what newspaper Hillary Clinton is pulling her foreign policy information.
Is it possible that the Senator from New York has no idea what she's talking about?
Surely not.
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