Clinton Errs On Pakistan

Politico:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details.

But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot."

In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf's party will be facing off against opposition parties, the president himself is not a candidate.

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[apresdeluge]

More anti-Hillary trivel from HuffPost. I, for one am sick of it.

[Purple Girl]

Hillary has proven her 'expereince ' is in screwing the public. She has done nothing but follow Bush's lead, with only a 'show' of dissent. I am soooo disappointed in this version of Hillary (she's spent to much time getting cozy with the Corporationist)
What the hell happened to her, along with the rest of the Dems? Including Bill????... but hindsight is 20/20.

[MNmommy]

Shall I pass the popcorn? Or is red-meat more appropriate?

[CindyKay]

Just More Confirmation That Joe Biden Is The President We Need.
Biden Knows Exactly What He Is Talking About.
Biden Has Actual Plans & Will Gladly Give Details.
Biden Is Not A WannaBe Like The Rest Of Them & Biden Does Not Cave To Special Interest Groups.
Biden Truly Wants To Restore America In The Eyes Of The World & We Can Help Him By Voting For Him.

[rh654]

Isn't Hillary running on all her vast "experience"?

[dgscol]

I just listened to Hillary wooing Iowians - her voice sounded just like Kathy Griffen. Also when i look at her, for some strange reason, I see "Big Bird". Maybe its the way she wears her hair. I just could not vote for her. not this way.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

shit, evidently I have more "experience" about Pakistan than Hillary does.

[eshalom]

Further support for Clinton's comments on the election in Pakistan can be found in today's Washington Post. Writers from Wapo's foreign service note:

"Proposals to put off the vote have provoked furor from the parties opposed to President Pervez Musharraf. They charge that Musharraf and his allies are using Bhutto's assassination Thursday as an excuse to avoid suffering a landslide defeat.

"The election will determine the composition of the parliament and the new prime minister. The stakes are especially high for Musharraf because a new parliament could impeach him if opposition groups secure a two-thirds majority."

Clinton knew what she was talking about.

[HumeSkeptic]

"Oopsy" - Hillary.

A big one. Obama and Edwards should be all over her for this beauty.

[IkeChicago]

Hillary Clinton insults Iowans, when Hillary can’t win, she insults the host. Is this anything like "The vast right wing conspiracy." Take note Iowa

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Over the weekend, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio was traveling alongside Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton here, asking voters to support her candidacy because he believes she is the Democratic candidate best suited to fend off Republicans and win back the White House.

In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Strickland said that starting the presidential nominating contest in Iowa "makes no sense." He added, "I’d like to see both parties say, ‘We’re going to bring this to an end.’"
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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/clinton-surrogate-veers-off-script/

[IkeChicago]

Read my blog down the page, I told you the Clinton camp was going to try and spin this one and I also told you exactly how they were going to spin it. Here is my blog

Watch for the campaign to spin their way out of this one. Here is the spin, Hillary was referring to his party, not to the President.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Here is the Clinton spin,

A spokesman for Clinton, Howard Wolfson, said Clinton was referring to Musharraf's party, not the president himself.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Clinton_errs_on_Pakistan_.html

[dtd]

It's about damn time this got picked up by Huff. Will the MSM, most notaby CNN (Clinton News Network) follow suit? When Huckabee made the rookie error of saying that Pakistan was still under Marshall Law, the media pounced. Now "Mrs Foreign Policy" makes a clear rookie mistake, not once but twice in separate interviews two consecutive days and the media ignores it.

[GuiltyByStander]

All this hard stuff is second-hand for Clinton and Obama. Why don't we just choose someone who knows what he's talking about?

Apart from the minor or major mistakes, Clinton and Obama have not led on any of these issues. Joe Biden has been three steps ahead of the issues every time they appeared. It's true of ending the Iraq war, the real problem with Iran, the most important issue: Pakistan, the nature of our relationship with the Saudis -- and soon with Russia.

We can't put these junior Senators in charge of the most dangerous country in the world -- our own.

[partyofone]

This is so funny. Hillary with all of her foreign policy "experience" fumbled again. She rushed to give interviews to show off her grasp of the circumstance in Pakistan and instead showed her lack of knowledge, lack of preparation and lack of good advisers.

Hillary has made very frequent mentions of her visits to Pakistan, including one in January 2007, when she met with Musharraf. Evidently, she did not learn much.

Hillary is plastic, all show, no depth or substance. She goes through the motions, bluffs, pannders, and misrepresents.

And her spokesman is lying. She said what she said, and it was WRONG. No parsing this time.

[Transcendentobserver]

Come on Dems: Let's not broadcast to the world our ignorance of basic civics. Pakistan, Britain, Canada, and most democratic countries, have parliamentary forms. and the executive is selected by vote of parliament, not independently elected by separate ballot. When Tony Blair "stood for election" it was with his party--not as chief executive. So it is with virtually all parliamentary forms.
Even in the United States, under our Constitutional system, our presidential candidates are legally not personally "on the ballot"; rather, one votes for a slate of electors in each state "pledged" to vote for a named candidate. Leave the demonstrative uninformed "gotcha" stupid response on this nonsense to the NeoCon ignorance machine from which Politico first reported the Senator's non erroneous error.