Washington Post: Obama committed an "ugly foul" on Pakistan

[Karmadillo]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122802445.html

The Pakistan Test
Some presidential candidates show they can respond quickly to a foreign policy crisis. Some flunk or foul.

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.

Let's start with Mr. Edwards, who managed not only to get Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the phone Thursday but also to deliver a strong message. The candidate said he had encouraged Mr. Musharraf "to continue on the path to democratization to allow international investigators to come in and determine what happened, what the facts were." Those are words the Pakistani president needs to hear from as many Americans as possible. He has yet to confirm that the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections will go forward and risks a destabilizing backlash against his own government unless he delivers a full and credible account of the authors and circumstances of Ms. Bhutto's killing.

Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain also endorsed Pakistan's continued democratization. Each cited an acquaintance with Ms. Bhutto or Mr. Musharraf and opportunistically trumpeted their foreign policy experience -- but both also offered some cogent analysis. Ms. Clinton rightly cited "the failure of the Musharraf regime either to deal with terrorism or to build democracy," adding that "it's time that the United States sided with civil society in Pakistan."

<edit>

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. Is this Mr. Obama's way of rejecting "the same Washington game" he lambasted earlier in the day? If so, his game doesn't look very new, or attractive.

more...

[rodeodance]

1. Edwards = 1; on foreign policy, clinton a half point, Obama=F

[Nailzberg]

2. No mention of Biden. Figures.

[JerseygirlCT]

35. That's what I was thinking, too

The person with the most experience in this area and ... nothing reported.

[ginchinchili]

51. My thoughts as well.

Since when did it become the news media's job to choose our presidents for us? It reminds me of the swell job they did during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

[babylonsister]

3. Nah, THIS is a foul....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2550935

[desi]

15. Nah, THIS Bush-like feeble attempt at spin

is foul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39gy7-p8Wsw

[babylonsister]

27. You're linking to Clinton News Network? Ha. How quaint.

Did you even bother to read the article, or does your tunnel vision preclude you from doing so?

[desi]

33. "Clinton News Network?"

Ha!!! Right out of the Rush playbook. Yes I read the OP..that is the topic in THIS thread yes?

"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."

[babylonsister]

34. I was referring to the link I provided. And as for ClintonNN,

all you have to do is revisit the debate hosted by wolf to get a taste of how one-sided this argument is. But that's probably too much to ask of you.
Do a search for Bayh and see how your gal immediately responded to Bhutto's death. As for Axelrod, he's spot on in connecting an illegal war that your gal voted for to the mess in Pakistan, and Afghanistan that no one seems to be addressing.
I know the truth can be painful, but there it is.

[desi]

37. Why drag a link that has absolutely nothing to do

with the topic at hand HERE? If I wanted to participate in THAT topic I would have done so over yonder. Cheers...

[Perry Logan]

26. And here I thought it was changing the subject.

[desi]

38. And right you were/are...

again...

[College Liberal]

56. Good Post

Nice Job.....

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

4. Obama put his foot in his mouth for sure. The ugliness of the

campaign is really discouraging.

[rodeodance]

9. Obama had a chance to retract his advisors comment but he beat around the bush!

[indimuse]

13. he stuttttttered aroundadada bush,

weak obama.

[DemKR]

5. K&r for my girl

[rodeodance]

8. and rec for my gal and guy --(i am still vascillating)

[rodeodance]

6. Topic subject How the Candidates Did on the 'Pakistan Test'

Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject How the Candidates Did on the 'Pakistan Test'
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3903070#3903070
3903070, How the Candidates Did on the 'Pakistan Test'
Posted by wyldwolf on Sat Dec-29-07 09:20 AM

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.

Let's start with Mr. Edwards, who managed not only to get Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the phone Thursday but also to deliver a strong message. The candidate said he had encouraged Mr. Musharraf "to continue on the path to democratization to allow international investigators to come in and determine what happened, what the facts were." Those are words the Pakistani president needs to hear from as many Americans as possible...

Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain also endorsed Pakistan's continued democratization. Each cited an acquaintance with Ms. Bhutto or Mr. Musharraf and opportunistically trumpeted their foreign policy experience -- but both also offered some cogent analysis. Ms. Clinton rightly cited "the failure of the Musharraf regime either to deal with terrorism or to build democracy," adding that "it's time that the United States sided with civil society in Pakistan."

... Mr. Obama... 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. Is this Mr. Obama's way of rejecting "the same Washington game" he lambasted earlier in the day? If so, his game doesn't look very new, or attractive.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122802445.html

[Armstead]

7. The truth hurts, I guess

Obama was absolutely right.

Perhaps the assisination and chaos were out of our control.

But, rather than find the ways to deal with the threat of Al Quadeh and at least encourage more stability in Pakistan and Afghanmistan, the US decided to stop in mid-stream and turn our attention to a completely needless -- and ultimately more destructive -- war in Iraq.

[LynnTheDem]

10. "the debatable assertion that the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan"...

ummm...define "debatable".

Coz fact is, the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

[chascarrillo]

23. I had to do a double-take on that one

I mean, WTF?

[LynnTheDem]

25. I had to double-check that it was WaPo, not Washington Journal.

Big-time WTF??!

[JerseygirlCT]

36. Yes, I'd agree with that, too.

It's stringing those things along though, in order to blame Sen. Clinton for Mrs. Bhutto's death, that stretches things more than a bit too far. It's a shame that he went there, really.

[bluerum]

11. WAPO - snicker snicker.

[MethuenProgressive]

12. Clinton's minor staffer Shaheen worse than Obama's Official Spokesman?

ObamaNation is now officially HypocriteNation.

[asjr]

14. The WashPost has become nothing more

than a rumor mill and a pointing finger. I don't like the fact that they are trying to "fix" the election. We can, on our own, like or dislike a candidate. That is our right. They are all human and do and will say things at times maybe they shouldn't, but I don't need the media to tell me what I should think. We have faced 7 years of crap from this administration but they will not comment on that. I've said it before and will say it again The Media are our worst enemy.

[rodeodance]

17. By Joe Conason---Obama's European problem

Obama's European problem

The senator may have traveled widely, but the critically important subcommittee on Europe has languished under his leadership.

By Joe Conason


http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/12/29/obama_europe/

[rodeodance]

18. Doubts about Barack Obama's presidential credentials have crystallized

Dec. 29, 2007 |

Doubts about Barack Obama's presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January. That startling fact, first uncovered by Steve Clemons, who blogs on the Washington Note, prompted acid comment in Europe about the Illinois senator's failure to visit the continent since assuming the committee post, and even speculation that he had never traveled there except for a short stopover in London.

[rodeodance]

16. Topic subject Obama's European problem

umm. He is not getting good press on this foreign stuff.


Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject Obama's European problem
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3903031#3903031
3903031, Obama's European problem
Posted by ccpup on Sat Dec-29-07 09:04 AM

from the article:

That is why congressional hearings matter, and why a subcommittee chairmanship represents a significant responsibility. Knowledge is not just power but the fundamental requirement for either house of Congress to act as an equal of the executive branch in government.

Should Obama wonder whether he ought to have bothered with his subcommittee, he could ask his friendly rival Joe Biden, D-Del., who chaired the Europe subcommittee for many years during the Cold War. Biden effectively exploited the chairmanship to transform himself from a junior member into one of the Senate's most knowledgeable experts on arms control, nuclear weapons, European attitudes toward America and the Soviet Union, the European Union's policies, and the role of NATO, which also comes under the subcommittee's mandate. As a result, Biden starred in Senate hearings on the SALT II arms treaties and eventually established himself as a leading national voice on foreign policy.

"I wouldn't call it a neglect of duty but a missed opportunity to explore issues that will be of fundamental importance to the next administration," says ambassador John Ritch, who served for two decades as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's senior staffer on European affairs and East-West relations, before going on to represent the Clinton administration at the United Nations organizations in Vienna.

...

-- but this is the paragraph that shows, for me, the opportunity Obama overlooked: --

Ritch points out that as subcommittee chair, Obama could have examined a wide variety of urgent matters, from the role of NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq to European energy policy and European responses to climate change -- and of course, the undermining of the foundations of the Atlantic alliance by the Bush administration. There is, indeed, almost no issue of current global interest that would have fallen outside the subcommittee's purview.

...

(more at link)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/12/29/obama_europe/print.html

[Pirate Smile]

19. The neocon editorial board of the Washington Post doesn't like anyone pointing

out that the Iraq War distracted us from Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What a shock!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. Thank you! nt

[CyberPieHole]

20. Yet another reason why Obama is the least viable of our candidates. K&R n/t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. Shorter WaPo: We don't appreciate Mr. Obama pointing out

the consequences of the war we were cheerleaders for.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

24. I think you might just

have hit the nail on the head there

[TwilightGardener]

28. Yep--kind of implicates EVERYBODY who supported the war

in the re-emergence of AQ, doesn't it? Had we crushed AQ in Afghanistan, been more aggressive with getting Pakistan to help us wipe out AQ in THEIR country, and caught OBL (before he died, if he did), Pakistan would be arguably more stable, and there may not have been a need to continue propping up Musharraf or to bring in Bhutto. Our policies helped contribute to the killing, and those who supported those policies in Congress are certainly responsible, as is ChimpCo. Even Bolton admits this.

[Cha]

54. Precisely...I hope

the people have learned by now not to let the fucked up m$$$m do their thinking for them.

[Perry Logan]

29. Oh dear oh dear. Tch-tch-tch. My oh my.

[Bluebear]

43. ...

:)

[MethuenProgressive]

30. His handlers shouldn't ever let him stray from the teleprompter's prepared and tested cheerleading.

Perhaps with more experience he'll understand politics better.

[desi]

40. I really doubt it.

From what's coming out of that campaign it's now or never. He's boxed himself into a corner now and can not apologize for his handler's gaffe without looking the fool.

:kick:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. He Should Wear The Earpiece That Bush* Wore

~

[ClarkUSA]

31. This, from the uberconservative, politics-as-usual WaPo editorial page which applauded the IWR?

And whose editorials have played cheerleader to Bush's Iraq war strategery? No surprise that they'd prop up the most conservative
Democrat running against the liberal Democrat who's been anti-Iraq war from the beginning.

You might as well be quoting the WSJ editorial page on this one. I'm sure we'll be seeing this BS on the front-page of HillaryIs44 soon. :eyes:

[dailykoff]

32. More crap from Pravda.

I'm beginning to think -- in fact I strongly suspect -- this whole thing was a setup with certain candidates in the loop and certain candidates ambushed, with canned hit jobs like this one all set to roll. It looks disgustingly familiar.

[annie1]

39. cool. but they forgot biden. damn. i hate this paper anyway.

[Lurking Dem]

41. Washinton Post: We committed and ugly foul cheerleading war

Please don't call us on it or we might have to become respectable journalists.

[Cha]

55. Not a chance...

Whores to the end.

[dkf]

42. This is lame.

I thought the article was going to say he make a foreign policy boo boo.

[BeyondGeography]

45. Laughable...has WaPo ever referred to the decision to invade Iraq

as an "ugly foul"? Oh no, this is reserved for the political to-and-fro of the campaign trail, and a comment which came as a response to a day of gloating from Team Clinton that Bhutto's death was good news for her campaign.

Good to see they have a healthy sense of priorities.

[AtomicKitten]

46. Now what was the reporter's question posed to Axelrod that elicited his statement?

Oh, that's right. The Media Heathers neglected to mention it in their reporting. The reporter asked Axelrod to comment on the Clinton campaign's immediate response to the assassination saying that it would benefit her campaign.

Context is everything.

[bigdarryl]

47. he didn't say that and they know it this sounds like there spinning for CLINTON

[Catherine Vincent]

48. they're

[Capn Sunshine]

49. wow, MSM is really desperate

Hillary, the queen of status quo, is going down, and that makes them very nervous.

I don't think it's a foul to tell the truth about Al Qeada getting stronger because we're mired in Iraq. Especially in light of who was pro going there and who wasn't.

Sorry, not a foul; clearly the hard truth is just too much for the WaPo inside the beltway squad to take.

[Cha]

53. You what Dean says.."When

you tell the truth in Washington it's called a gaffe."

[flpoljunkie]

50. Did WaPo really say "debatable assertion the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan?"

This tells us all we need to know about the warmongering, neocon Washington Post editorial board. They have zero credibility.

[Cha]

52. CorporateWhore washedout post.

What Obama said was true so of course that's a gaffe in Washington.