"Bad for Bhutto. Good for me."
If
there's one line that sums up how yesterday's assassination of
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is "playing" in the U.S.
presidential race, that's it. Despite warnings from Hillary Clinton
spokesman Jay Carson ("No one should be politicizing this situation")
and Barack Obama himself ("It’s important for us to not look at this in
terms of short-term political points scoring"), pretty much every
campaign started spinning this geopolitical tragedy as proof of why he
or she is best qualified to lead in a time of terror the second it hit
the wires. Meaning pundits immediately started spouting off about who
"wins"--or "benefits" or "stands to gain"--and who "loses."
One word: ugh.
There was Clinton,
noting at a high school in Lawton, Iowa that Bhutto was a pioneering
woman (wink!) and claiming that "it certainly raises the stakes high
for what we expect from our next president," as if, with the wars in
Iraq and on terrorism, they weren't already astronomical. "I know," she
added, "from a lifetime of working to make change." Making change =
foreign-policy prowess? Who knew?
There was her surrogate, Sen. Evan Bayh, informing MSNBC that "we live in a dangerous world, and tragedies like
this just remind us that we need someone with the seasoning, the
experience and the strength to be commander in chief during uncertain
times. The job of the next president is not to be
entertainer in chief." Quick! Somebody tell Mike Gravel.
There was Obama
guru David Axelrod reminding the world that "Barack Obama had the
judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned
at the time it would divert us from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda"--then
straining to link the killing to Clinton's authorization vote. "And now
we see the effect of that," he told reporters. "I
think his judgment was good. Sen. Clinton made a different judgment, so
let's have that discussion." Or not.
There was Bill Richardson,
calling (absurdly) for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to step
down; there was Joe Biden (rightfully) attacking Richardson's
statement. There was John Edwards boasting that he had SPOKEN
to Musharraf, implying, I suppose, that, as president, only he would
have considered that particular course of action. There was John McCain saying that Romney "doesn't have any [national security]
experience," then adding that the same goes for "everybody that's
running"--other than himself, of course. "None of them supported what's
working in Iraq," he said--apparently because Iraq is, like, also a
Muslim country. There was Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney
on FOX News, CBS, Larry King and MSNBC, repeating the words "9/11" and
"Ronald Reagan" ad infinitum. Guess which was which. And, finally,
there was us--the MSM--declaring
that "BHUTTO'S ASSASSINATION COULD ROIL BOTH PARTIES, WITH CLINTON AND
MCCAIN SEEN AS THE LIKELY BENEFICIARIES." Read all about it.
Look.
It's not like I'm surprised by spin or peeved by punditry that reduces
a destabilizing disaster to cocktail-party chatter. As the Politico
notes, it's a necessary "dry run for daily life at
1600 Pennsylvania"--and since we're days from the Iowa caucuses and
this stuff is absolutely inevitable, there's no point complaining. But
I can't help thinking that all the spin and punditry is sort of
pointless, too. In the end, we rely on our gut to pick a president--not
the headlines. For the folks who've already chosen, Bhutto's
assassination will only confirm whatever conviction led to that
conclusion; if you think Obama was right on Iraq, for example, you'll
probably give him the benefit of the doubt on Pakistan. And to assume
that Bhutto's slaying will sway the folks who still aren't sure is to
assume that, until now, they'd forgotten that the world is a dangerous
place. There was terrorism yesterday, there's terrorism today and there
will be terrorism tomorrow--especially overseas. To treat Americans as
if they don't know that--and to imagine that shouting "danger!" will
determine their votes--is pretty condescending.
