Hillary Clinton, this blog's for you: Benazir Bhutto was running for Prime Minister of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf is already President of Pakistan and not up for reelection, a fact which you apparently hadn't been briefed on when you talked to George Stephanopolous this Sunday. How could you not know that? How could you make such a foreign-policy mistake after your husband, ex-President Bill Clinton - or was he Senator? - proclaimed you “a world-class genius”?
Mrs. Clinton, history has shown that no matter how clever in a debate, no matter how many millions raised, how many years spent in the White House, no matter how high national polling — and best of all, no matter how well you know someone — you can actually muddle the facts on that person, especially if you are from different ethnic backgrounds and countries.
Heloise’s best advice: go to the Google gods first. Bend your fingers in abeyance, type in a few terse words and bingo, bravo, and presto, your prayers are answered. You now have the information you need to shoot off your big mouth — if you must, in front of the world. And what’s best: aside from the FBI or CIA, should they hack into your computer remotely or get a court order to impound and search your hard drive, no one else need ever know that you first consulted Google before going on the stump. Sound bites (such as "world class genius") don’t kill but lack of access to technology does kill a budding career. It makes me wonder how many facts she scrambled over the years about her own husband. Does she really know what Bill did in the Oval Office? We'll leave that question for another day. For today we will focus on the unthinkable — foreign policy gaff #1: don't get the office, election or the party wrong.
Seriously, all she (or her brilliant hubby) had to do was consult or go to Google, and type in her now-deceased friend’s name: Benazir Bhutto bio, and voila, thousands of hits would have come up. And she could then take her pick. What would she have found? I don’t know exactly. But she certainly could have avoided infamy at the hands of Ben Smith’s article at Politico.com.
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.
"He will NOT be on the ballot," said a Pakistan scholar at Columbia University, Philip Oldenburg [via email].
Huh? You've got to be kidding. He won't be on the ballot? Bhutto was not up against her arch-enemy Musharraf? Say it ain't so, Ben. This really begs the question: were our genius and her entire expert staff sans technology, sans computer in this day and age of Aquarius? That is the unpardonable sin. If only she had Googled, she would have known that Bhutto had already served as prime minister, not once but twice. It was during her second term that they sipped tea together or clicked their heels across the tiles of her beautiful home. She was never president of Pakistan, the office held by Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto's husband had also been prime minister. A quick Wikipedia visit would have resulted in this gem:
She [Benazir Bhutto] was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate.
Thus as my title suggests: in that order, go to Google, or Wikipedia first, then set up your media discourse or soliloquy. It only takes a few minutes. Even Al Gore has teamed up with them to control global warming and make lots of money. This messy mistake could have been completely avoided by Mrs. Clinton, or it is your royal highness? I am confused by your many years in the White House, was it eight years exactly? By coincidence that’s also the number of years that Mrs. Bhutto was in exile, before her October return, and almost the number of years she served as PM in total.
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Article comments
1 - Jacob
"Well as one candidate once said so eloquently: Hillary, you're no Eleanor Roosevelt"
Give Hillary her due.
She and Eleanor do have one thing in common.
Philandering husbands.