BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

  America woke up to the news that Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was assinated at a political rally while we slept.  At approximately 6:16 p.m. (Pakistani time)  Bhutto was pronounced dead following a suicide bombing and a gunshot wound to the neck or head.  She has already been described as a martyr by many.

Richard Engel, the Middle East Bureau Chief for NBC news, recently described Ms. Bhutto as “Ms. Liberty”, a statment that was made with tongue in cheek.  She was in a bitter battle with President Pervez Musharraf for control of the volatile country. 

The idea of political unrest rising to the levels it has recently seen in Pakistan is nothing new.  Bhutto and Musharraf have been at odds for years.  Neither character was flawless.  The upcoming January 8th elections would have been equally as flawed in all probability.

Since President Bush declared the “War on Terror” we have cozied up with Musharraf, and recently have attempted to play on both sides of the fence, flirting with Ms. Bhutto just in case she could have won the January election.  I suppose now we will get back on the Musharraf side.  We do need him to help us find Osama bin Laden… or have we forgotten him?  This brings me to something my father used to say.  “We forgot that the original objective was to drain the swamp.  Now, we are up to our ass in alligators.”

As a human, we all mourn the loss of Ms. Bhutto.  But, before we go off on a tangent depicting the situation in Pakistan as a barbaric act amid Islamic unrest, let us not forget our own history.  It wasn’t so many years ago that in the eyes of the world we were in turmoil, killing off our leaders… dare I mention John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the list goes on. 

The assassination of Bhutto is a blow to democracy, if for no reason other than her name would have been on the January 8th ballot.  But, before we start throwing stones, let us not forget that we live in a glass house, too.