U.S. lawmakers who were to meet with Bhutto describe shock (Musharraf called Edwards?)

[ProSense]

U.S. lawmakers who were to meet with Bhutto describe shock

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview from his Islamabad hotel room that he and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, were to dine with Musharraf and meet later in the night with Bhutto.

He said he heard about the attack on Bhutto as he was dressing for the dinner with Musharraf.

"Our foreign policy had relied on her presence as a stabilizing force," Specter said, emotionally describing her death as "a real, real, real shock."

"I knew her personally. ... She was ... glamorous, beautiful smart," he said. "Her loss is a setback. But you have to face what is. And now, without her, we have to regroup."

Bhutto was shot to death Thursday in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others during a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. She served twice as Pakistan's prime minister between 1988 and 1996 and had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile October 18 to seek the office again.

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Bush has spoken with Musharraf: White House

Edwards: "I met Musharraf years ago in Islamabad. We talked about many of the problems that his country was faced with including kids being educated in Madrasahs and some of the struggles that he was having within his own country and so when I spoke to the ambassador earlier today I said if Musharraf, if the president had time would you have him give me a call because I'd like to speak with him directly and he called."

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There is rioting in the streets of Pakistan, the country is in a state of emergency, Musharraf cancelled pre-scheduled meetings with Sen. Specter and Rep. Kennedy, who are in country, and Musharraf called Edwards, which has to be the oddest thing of the day.

[ProSense]

1. More on the Musharraf-Edwards call

From Firstread, MSNBC:

“He called me,” Edwards said, “because I told the ambassador I’d like to speak to him. I met him a few years ago, which I think I told you earlier, and we had a conversation in which I urged him to continue the democratization process. He told me, he gave me his assurances that he intended to do that, and we also spoke about having international independent investigators allowed into the country for transparency purposes, for credibility purposes, and we spoke briefly about the elections.”

[doc03]

2. Well why didn't he call Hillary Clinton, doesn't

she have all that vast foreign policy experience?:sarcasm: