South Dakota Politics

Huckabysmal Ignorance on Pakistan

The Washington Post has a good test of the various candidates for President: how they reacted to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  Here is the summary of results:

THE ASSASSINATION of Benazir Bhutto presented U.S. presidential candidates with a test: Could they respond cogently and clearly to a sudden foreign policy crisis? Within hours some revealing results were in. One candidate, Democrat John Edwards, passed with flying colors. Another, Republican Mike Huckabee, flunked abysmally. Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain were serious and substantive; Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani were thin. And Barack Obama -- the Democratic candidate who claims to represent a new, more elevated brand of politics -- committed an ugly foul.

Edwards apparently won because he actually got Mr. Musharraf on the phone.  Otherwise, he, Clinton, and McCain did reasonably well.  Romney and Giuliani lose points for giving typically vapid political answers; but at least they avoided embarrassing gaffs.

At the other extreme was Mr. Huckabee, whose first statement seemed merely uninformed: He appeared not to know that Mr. Musharraf had ended "martial law" two weeks ago. That was better than the candidate's next effort, when he said an appropriate U.S. response would include "very clear monitoring of our borders . . . to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into our country." The cynicism of this attempt to connect Pakistan's crisis with anti-immigrant sentiment was compounded by its astonishing senselessness.

The problem here is not cynicism, it's ignorance.  It again seems likely that the former Arkansas governor does not have the most pedestrian acquaintance with events in the rest of the world, or a Joe's Diner level ability to talk about them.  This was excusable, perhaps, before his campaign heated up and began to attract money.  Now he should have a small staff to rapidly bring him up to speed on such things.  The only explanation for this kind of performance is that he just isn't interested in foreign policy.  His eyes glaze over when his advisers talks to him about it.  That is very bad.

And then there is Obama:

Mr. Obama similarly began by offering bland condolences to Pakistanis and noting that "I've been saying for some time that we've got a very big problem there."

Then Mr. Obama committed his foul -- a far-fetched attempt to connect the killing of Ms. Bhutto with Ms. Clinton's vote on the war in Iraq. After the candidate made the debatable assertion that the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan, his spokesman, David Axelrod, said Ms. Clinton "was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in the event today."  When questioned later about his spokesman's remarks, Mr. Obama stiffly defended them -- while still failing to offer any substantive response to the ongoing crisis.

Again, it is the lack of substance and not the cynicism that is the problem.  Trying to score points against Ms. Clinton with this issue was an unforced error.  But showing that he has the ability to formulate a response is far more important.  It is hard to see how either Obama or Huckabee have any business being in this election at this point. 

Why America's in the Gulf

Walter Russell Mead:  Why America's in the Gulf

No Illusions About Pakistan

Andy McCarthy:  "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."  Read the whole thing.  See also Stanley Kurtz's article from a month ago entitled "The Democracy Myth."

UPDATE:  Some further thoughts as I ponder what the assassination means for the U.S. and the world.  While I have mixed feelings about Bhutto herself (I originally believed the corruption charges of the 1990s were politically orchestrated, but further reading convinces me the charges were real), she certainly carried a large following in Pakistan among those who wished to see Musharraf leave and move Pakistan towards democracy.  Despite her flaws, in the final analysis I think she was Pakistan's best opportunity to take on militancy and further reforms.  The extremists knew this, so she was their prime target.  Jay Reding suggests that this may unite the Pakistanis against al-Qaeda, which will push Musharraf to crack down harder on extremists.  I hope that's the case.  For ourselves, this should remind us that we cannot act behind our borders.  We are fortunate we haven't experienced an attack since September 11, 2001.  But, this is no time for isolation or Huckabee's foreign policy naïvete.  If the country collapses in crisis, the nightmare of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamic extremists becomes very real and pressing (see Stephen Cohen's comments from last month).  Dr. Schaff points out the hard truth of the matter: every policy option we choose is fraught with danger.  Our interference will generate mass outcries of the U.S. involving itself in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.  If free elections are held and Islamists take control, they then control nuclear weapons.  Or we can support Musharraf, which runs counter to our democratic principles.  All three options could generate more emnity towards us.  The attack should remind us our war on terrorism is very real and far from over. 

It's also important to highlight the new opposition leader in Pakistan, former prime minister Naqaz Sharif.  Sharif has made appeals to Islamic militants, arguing that Pakistan should tool down its cooperation with the U.S.  He immediately seized her death for political gain, visiting the hospital where she died, attacking Musharraf for supposedly providing Bhutto with insufficient security, and calling for the reunification of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and his Muslim League-Nawaz.  With hope, the PPP will elect a new, strong leader to take up Bhutto's standard for liberty and democracy.   

The Ten Most Corrupt Political Figures of 2007

Judicial Watch has named its ten most corrupt political figures of 2007, which includes several well-known politicians and four presidential candidates.  Among them are:

• Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): ...Feinstein reviewed military construction government contracts, some of which were ultimately awarded to URS Corporation and Perini, companies then owned by Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum...
• Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): ...“[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office...”
• Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): ...in 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed...
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): ...snuck a $25 million gift to her husband, Paul Pelosi, in a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act recently passed by Congress. The pet project involved renovating ports in Speaker Pelosi's home base of San Francisco. Pelosi just happens to own apartment buildings near the areas targeted for improvement, and will almost certainly experience a significant boost in property value as a result of his wife's earmark...
• Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): ...over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help a developer, Havey Whittemore, clear obstacles for a profitable real estate deal. As the project advanced, the Times reported, “Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore.” Whittemore also hired one of Reid’s sons (Leif) as his personal lawyer...

Be sure to read the whole list.  Note also that Mayor Giuliani and Senator Clinton earned places on the list as well.  Americans might be familiar with the accusations toward Scooter Libby, Rudy Giuliani, and Larry Craig, but are unlikely aware of cases surrounding Speaker Pelosi, Senator Feinstein, Senator Obama, or Senator Reid.  Might this factor into voter decisions in Iowa and New Hampshire?  We'll find out starting in five days.  HT to our friends over at Power Line.

Lesson From Pakistan: Foreign Policy Is Hard

When I teach American Foreign Policy this coming term I aim to stress one important point: foreign policy is hard.  When attempting to set the nation's policy toward the world the president and other decision makers are faced with so many variables and uncertainties that it baffles the mind.  This calls for humility when we give our own propositions or criticize others' proposals. 

This lesson is now demonstrated before us with the looming chaos that is Pakistan.  Here we have a nuclear power that serves as a home base for violent political movements and whose governing capacity is quickly whithering away.  What is the correct policy?  As Jay Reding points out, some of our presidential candidates are acting anything but humble, using the obstreperous situation in Pakistan for quick political gain.  Look how quick Hillary Clinton is to denounce Pervez Musharraf as lacking any credibility.  Hillary Clinton hopes to be president.  Pervez Musharraf may not only remain as Pakistani president into a Clinton presidency, he just may be the best option left on the table.  How is she going to work with a man who may be heading a dangerous nuclear state after she has, for short term political gain, labeled him as bereft of credibility?  Perhaps this is the kind of reaction that leads Peggy Noonan to list Sen Clinton among the presidential candidates who are not reasonable choices.    

Clinton is certainly moved by the fact that Musharraf is an ethically compromised leader with dictatorial tendencies.  What other options do we have?  The United States was backing Benazir Bhuto, but as Prof. Blanchard points out, she had her own history of corruption and her commitment to liberal ideals was limited.  But she spoke out against the violent Muslim extremists, and that made her a credible alternative.  Stanley Kurtz argues, though, that her support in Pakistan was in spite of her opposition to Islamism, not because of it.  The current alternative is Newaz Sharif, but he too is tied to corruption and, worse, has apparently been making deals with the Islamists to gain power.  This makes Musharraf look better except that he has been making deals with Islamists in order to maintain power.  Perhaps Bill Buckley is correct that the proper policy is one of neglect, but should things take a turn from serious to deadly serious the United States would surely be blamed for not actively engaging the Pakistanis and helping them toward peaceful democracy.  And will not the US be accused of ignoring the plight of the people of Pakistan, creating more hatred toward us?  But we are also told that nations cannot and should not be forced into democracy.    So if the United States gets intimately involved in midwifing a Pakistani democracy and things go badly we surely will take the blame for meddling in affairs of a foreign nation.  And will not the US be accused to interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, creating more hatred toward us?  Further, if we support elections in Pakistan the Islamists may take control and, as the saying goes, there will be one person, one vote, one time.  And we'll have an Islamist nuclear power.  But if we throw our support behind a dictator who will at least provide order and keep the Islamists out of power, we compromise our democratic principles as well as running the risk of creating more enmity toward ourselves.

The policy options toward Pakistan are all fraught with danger.  As with most foreign policy problems there are no simple solutions.  Those are not to be trusted who talk as if there are. 

The Pakistan situation teaches one more lesson.  The course of history can turn on a dime.  Who in 2000 could have guessed that fighting international terrorism would become the overwhelming task of the next president?  That subject certainly garnered little attention from either the candidates or the press.  We cannot predict with any accuracy what the prevailing issue of the next four years will be.  That is why prudent voters should assess not just the policy positions of candidates but their overall character and judgment.  The issues we debate today may not even be on the radar in 2012.  Events will intervene, so chose a candidate with the capacity to deal with the vagaries of history. 

Slouching Toward Second Rate

How do you become a second rate sports league?  Take a lesson from the NFL. Today the Patriots play the Giants in a bid to complete the first undefeated regular season since the 1972 Dolphins.  Unfortunately, in order to actually see one of the biggest regular seasons games in league history you will have to be one of about twelve Americans who subscribe to the NFL network.  In a bid to make more money the NFL is moving some of its games on to this obscure cable network with few subscribers.  In the process it is alienating its fan base.  Granted, sports fans are consumers, but they aren't just consumers yet that is how the league is treating them.  Perhaps the NFL's goal is to be a league with high profit margins but with few fans.  Good luck with that.

Update:  That was quick.  Bob Schwartz emails me:

While I agree the NFL Network thing is a debacle, the NFL relented 2 days ago and the Patriot-Giant game is being simulcast on CBS and NBC so the rest of us that do not have the NFL Network will be able to see it.

Well, that's what you get for being on vacation.  I hadn't heard the news. 

Benazir Bhuto

The assassination of Ms. Bhutto may well be the tragedy that finally brings down the Musharraf regime.  It is certainly a great blow to U.S. policy, since we "brokered" her return.  From the Washington Post:

Bhutto's assassination leaves Pakistan's future -- and Musharraf's -- in doubt, some experts said. "U.S. policy is in tatters. The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto's participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf's continued power as president," said Barnett R. Rubin of New York University. "Now Musharraf is finished."

That last judgment may well be true whether or not Musharraf was responsible for the assassination.  Either he was willing to assassinate a rival rather than face her in a fair election, or he was too weak or had too little control over his own security forces to protect her.  Either is very bad, and the latter is probably worse.

Bhutto was only a little less ambiguous a figure than Musharraf.   David Ignatius of the Washington Post calls her "modern, liberal, and unafraid."

She believed in democracy, freedom and openness -- not as slogans, but as a way of life. She wasn't perfect; the corruption charges that enveloped her second term as prime minister were all too real. But she remained the most potent Pakistani voice for liberalism, tolerance and change.

But here is Ralph Peters from the New York Post:

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.

The really dismal thing is that both may be true. She may well have been the "most potent Pakistani voice for liberalism" and a typical member of a "thieving political dynasty."  Such is the state of Pakistan. 

It is hard to believe that Musharraf engineered this assassination.  If he didn't want to face Ms. Bhutto in an election, it would have been much safer to prevent her return. Al Qaeda had much more to gain.  See Newsweek:

Bruce Riedel, a former defense and intelligence official who helped make South Asia policy in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, says he believes Benazir Bhutto's assassination "was almost certainly the work of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's Pakistani allies." He says, "Their objective is to destabilize the Pakistani state, to break up the secular political parties, to break up the army so that Pakistan becomes a politically failing state in which the Islamists in time can come to power much as they have in other failing states."

Whether or not Al Qaeda was behind the assassination, there is every reason to suppose that their interests have been advanced.      

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

The AP reports that Benazir Bhutto was killed after a shooting followed by a suicide bombing at a political rally where she was speaking.  Much more from Michelle Malkin.  Max Boot comments here.  More updates from JWF and Gateway Pundit.  Pajamas Media has a large roundup.

Bhutto was Harvard-educated, the eldest child of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.  Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, twice becoming Pakistan's prime minister.  She arrived in office in free elections in 1988 but removed on corruption charges.  She was again elected in 1993, but removed on similar charges.  She went into self-imposed exile to Dubai in 1998, where she stayed until her return to Pakistan in October 2007, where she was greeted by two jihadi bombs that killed more than 100 people but narrowly missed her.  She was prepared to be killed in the process of seeking democratic leadership of Pakistan.  She pledged a tough crackdown on Islamist militants, and those pledges cost her her life.  Let us hope she's the last martyr for Islamic democracy.

UPDATE:  After reading and learning more about Bhutto, I may have to revise my original position praising her as a martyr for liberal democracy.  She may have been tough on Islamic militants, but her committment to liberal ideals seems to fall short.  She may have been the least bad option, but now that she's gone, we're left with the even less appetizing choices of Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif.  She might have been "modern, liberal, and unafraid," as David Igantius described her, but as Ralph Peters points out, she may have cared more about power than democracy.

McGovern on '72, '80, and '08

Watertown Public Opinion excerpt:

There's something unique you realize after you lose an election for the presidency, says 1972 Democratic candidate and South Dakota native George McGovern.

"You notice how quiet it was," he said, after the crowds of cheering supporters leave and the Secret Service security detail walks away for good. What's worse, he said, is that he lost in a landslide to the since-much-reviled Richard Nixon, who later resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

McGovern, 85, was in Watertown Dec. 15 for the last in a series of three interviews to document his life, political career, and current work.

Historian Eric Abrahamson, a former Democratic candidate for state lieutenant governor, interviewed McGovern before a crowd of about 120 at the Heritage Theater in the Watertown Event Center.

Losing South Dakota, his home state, in the 1972 election was especially hard on him, said McGovern. South Dakotans saw him rising in the party leadership in the Capitol and wondered if he was moving too far away from the state.

"'What is George doing running for president?'" he said many South Dakotans likely thought. "'He's just a college professor from Mitchell.'"

Nixon's resignation from the presidency was necessary, and he deserved to be impeached, McGovern said. But while he didn't join those calling for Nixon's impeachment, he felt justified for what he had said during the campaign against Nixon.

"I felt fully vindicated," he said.

The resignation caused him to seriously consider another run for the presidency, especially with all the anti-Nixon sentiment in the country. But McGovern, still a senator, enjoyed the job he had.

The 1980 campaign for the senate, which McGovern lost, felt like a right-wing Republican hit job, he said. Conservative groups worked together to take down six prominent senators, including McGovern. They poured money and personnel into the states, ignited the abortion issue and turned the states into battlegrounds.

The loss of most of the targeted liberal senior senators brought a chill to the spine of those who were left in office and moved the center line of American politics, he said.

"It was a real massacre, let me tell you," he said. "Nothing's been the same since."

Read the whole thing.

Second Aquash Murder Trial Set for June

I've blogged before about my research on the American Indian Movement and the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia, Canada, who joined up with AIM at the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation.  Her body was discovered on February 24, 1976, on the side of Highway 73 near Wanblee, South Dakota.  There has always been suspicion as to whether AIM or the FBI was behind her murder.  Recently, journalist Steve Hendricks has argued AIM killed her because they suspected she was an FBI informant.  AIM maintains the FBI was behind her murder.  In 2004, the a federal jury declared Arlo Looking Cloud, a former AIM activist, guilty of first-degree murder in the execution-style death of Aquash.  A second man, John Graham, was also charged with first-degree murder and, since 2004, fought extradition from Canada until he was extradited on December 8, 2007.  The Associated Press reports that his trial will begin in Rapid City this coming June:

The second man charged with the 1975 slaying of an American Indian Movement activist will stand trial in Rapid City starting June 17, according to court documents.

John Graham, 52, was extradited from Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 8, four years after he was arrested and charged with killing fellow AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Her body was found in February 1976 north of Wanblee with a gunshot wound to the head.

Graham pleaded innocent to first-degree murder in U.S. District Court in Rapid City and is being held in the county jail.

U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley said he was "looking forward to justice being served in this matter for all those involved, including the family members of Anna Mae Aquash."

Graham's lawyer, John Murphy of Rapid City, declined to comment.

Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, a Lakota from Pine Ridge who had been living homeless in Denver, was convicted in 2004 and received a mandatory life prison sentence.

At his trial, witnesses said Looking Cloud, Graham and another AIM member, Theda Clark, drove Aquash from Denver and that Graham shot Aquash in the Badlands as she begged for her life.

Clark has not been charged. She lives in a nursing home in western Nebraska and has refused to discuss the case.

Graham, a Southern Shoshone from the Yukon also known as John Boy Patton, denies killing Aquash, though he acknowledged being in the car with her from Denver.

Populism v. Classical Liberalism in Iowa

Laura Meckler and Elizabeth Holmes, writing in the Wall Street Journal, have the best piece I have seen yet on the contest between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in Iowa. 

In Iowa, the Republican presidential race has come down to two former governors who offer caucus goers a stark choice. It's the pulpit vs. the boardroom, poverty vs. privilege, passion vs. preparedness.

Mike Huckabee loves homespun tales and self-deprecating jokes. Mitt Romney basks in PowerPoint slides and statistics. Mr. Huckabee, a firefighter's son, is a Southerner born and bred. Mr. Romney, son of a CEO-turned-governor, roamed from Michigan to Massachusetts to Utah.

They embody two wings of the Republican Party -- social conservatives and economic conservatives -- that sometimes sit uneasily.

It would appear that the tensions expressed in the Romney/Huckabee are similar to those that brought down Tom Daschle, if I am right in my interpretation of the latter event.  Huckabee represents the populist wing of the Republican party.  Until recently, the populists were largely assimilated into the party's classical liberalism.  The populists liked the emphasis on security, at home and abroad, that is part of the conservative program.  They were less enthusiastic about free markets of any kind, but nonetheless supported them.  After all, for a long time the alternative was communism. 

Huckabee's rise may be a sign that the conservative coalition is coming unglued.  But it is way too early to conclude that.  We don't know if Huckabee will even win Iowa.  He is not that far ahead of Romney in most polls.  See Pollster.com. 

Pollster	Dates	N/Pop	Giuliani	Huckabee	McCain	Paul	Romney	Thompson
ARG	12/20-23/07	600 LV	14	23	17	10	21	3
ARG	12/16-19/07	600 LV	13	28	20	4	17	5
Strategic Vision (R)	12/16-18/07	600 LV	6	31	8	5	25	16
CNN	12/14-18/07	359 LV	11	33	9	6	25	9
Rasmussen	12/17/2007	496 LV	8	28	14	6	27	8

And if he does win, that doesn't mean he will win anything else.  I also can't help noticing from this chart from the Meckler/Holmes article.

The split between evangelicals and professionals is probably as good a shot of the populist/conservative distinction as one will find.  But it isn't all that much of a split, is it?  Evangelicals are probably asking themselves whether Huckabee can win.  The conservatives are wondering whether Romney is really a conservative, or is just playing one on tv.  When both groups can split within themselves on such issues, they can recombine with other groups for the sake of victory.

A Brief History of Christmas

Sorry for the light blogging, but holidays always make it difficult to keep up.  Traveling, and getting stuck in a snowstorm in North Platte, Nebraska, en route for Denver, doesn't make it any easier.  Blogging will be off and on from me for the next week or so.  In the meantime, the WSJ OpinionJournal carries a piece by John Steel Gordon, who brings an historian's perspective to the war on Christmas.  Read his assessment entitled "A brief history of Christmas."