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A Lesson of the Bhutto Assassination

Watching the tragedy of Benazir Bhutto's assassination unfold Thursday should have provided a sobering reality check for everyone who bemoans the state of politics in this country. We can go on endlessly about how divided our electorate is, about how no one listens to anyone on the other side of the spectrum, but—while we may not be living in a golden age of debate—things rarely get more out of control than some stolen yard signs or missing Ws on the White House keyboards. I might not like it if Hillary Clinton gets to move back into the White House, and you might shudder at the thought of another GOP administration, but none of us are likely to take up arms or wish for the death of their ideological adversaries.

Except for maybe Dave Lindorff, who says, in a column that got play on Drudge and InstaPundit, that global warming and the accompanying rise in sea levels have a "silver lining." He's looking forward to the day (in a shorter time frame than I've seen cited by even the most alarmist environmentalist) when most of Red America is wiped out by flooding or drought. I wish I could write this off as the unhinged rantings of a fringe blogger, but Lindorff is, according to his Wikipedia page and the bio on the article, a two-time Fulbright scholar and a published author.

Before Lindorff next sits down at his keyboard and cackles to himself about how riotously hilarious he is for telling us backward bumpkins in the Midwest that we're gonna git what's comin' to us, he should pause and realize that dying for your political beliefs is a very real possibility in parts of this world, and that there's nothing funny or clever about it.

At Least We Know Who's the Unsafe Candidate

You might be right, Melinda, that experience doesn't make Hillary Clinton or John McCain the "safe" candidate in light of the Bhutto assassination. (I'll admit I've found myself warming to McCain while he survived the greatly exaggerated reports of his death, and as the other GOP candidates I thought I might support have begun flailing.) But (via the excellent Ed Morrissey) I hope that we can agree that Bill Richardson is a wildly dangerous candidate in comparison.

Here's what Gov. Richardson had to say:

President Bush should press Musharraf to step aside, and a broad-based coalition government, consisting of all the democratic parties, should be formed immediately. Until this happens, we should suspend military aid to the Pakistani government. Free and fair elections must also be held as soon as possible. It is in the interests of the U.S. that there be a democratic Pakistan that relentlessly hunts down terrorists. Musharraf has failed, and his attempts to cling to power are destabilizing his country. He must go.

Really? He wants President Bush to overthrow the government of another country? This does lend credence, though, to your theory, Melinda, that "experience" might not be what we're looking for. Richardson's own Web site touts his experience and brags that "Governor Richardson knows the Middle East, and he knows diplomacy can work there," and this is the best he can come up with? 

Benazir Bhutto

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today at a rally near Islamabad. A suicide bomber reportedly shot her at close range then detonated an explosive, killing Bhutto and 20 others. Bhutto was a complicated woman—underneath the traditional veils she was a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, who spoke flawless English. But then under all that she was also a political creature who had mastered the sort of shape-shifting needed to cast herself as a historic figure in the mold of Indira Ghandi or Joan of Arc. This sharp sketch of Bhutto in the New York Times last month suggested that under all the compelling Western-sounding rhetoric, Bhutto was really no different than centuries of predecessors—doling out political favors and reportedly treating the government coffers as the family cookie jar.

What kind of woman survives multiple assassination attempts and persists in attending huge political rallies in an open vehicle? Perhaps if your father and brothers are killed all around you, that starts to feel quite normal. 

In a diary she wrote for Slate just over 10 years ago, Bhutto offers a few clues. Balancing her duties as opposition leader in the National Assembly of Pakistan against her responsibilities to her children, she sounds like any working mother: “I do not like my children watching cartoons,” she writes “But I am feeling guilty. I have to catch a flight to Islamabad where the Parliament is based. So I cave in.” But what really pervades this weeklong account is a feeling of walls closing in on her. When she hears of threats to burn down her home in Islamabad, she acts to relocate her children to schools in Dubai. From her veil that keeps slipping off to the inability of an unaccompanied woman to “hail a taxi or drive a car,” in Pakistan anymore, Bhutto seems forever pressed to be smaller than she wants to be. References abound to retorts she doesn’t offer and comebacks left unsaid, “I get angry. Stop it, I say. That's what they want. You are not going to play their game.”

Interspersed between the almost mundane recitations of who in her government has been kidnapped, arrested, or released each day are Bhutto’s frequent references to the small indulgences—the pizza binges and chocolate cakes and the books—Western trappings in which she indulges almost helplessly.

After finishing Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough, Bhutto reflects “Here we are heading towards the third millennium, and the conduct of men and women still mirrors the style of Caesar's age.”
“Does time go forward or backward or just stand still?” she continues. “Do we fight the same demons in each era and in each century only with different methods and in different styles? Are we condemned to a cycle of patterns that keeps turning and ending up where it started?” For Bhutto, at least, the choice was to repeat the patterns set by her family—fighting her way to center stage, and dying larger than life.

In her diary there is an exchange with her then-7-year-old daughter, Bakhtwar, that reveals a Bhutto who may have nevertheless believed she could defy that pattern. As her mother leaves for the airport Bakhtwar looks up at her mother and waves casually, "Bye, it was nice seeing you. Come back soon," she breezes.
"What do you mean," replies Bhutto. "I am your mother. I am stuck to you like that arm of yours for life."
"But, Mama, my arm keeps going away," she complains.
"But it always comes back," says Bhutto.