Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

"I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis."
--Benazir Bhuto

I knew this would happen. The Economist reports:

Horrifying millions of frightened Pakistanis, Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the country’s biggest political party, was assassinated on Thursday December 27th. Her attacker fired gunshots into her car as she was leaving a political rally in Rawalpindi, then exploded a suicide bomb. At least 15 of Miss Bhutto’s followers were also killed.

Former Premier Bhutto arrived in Karachi two months ago "with the aim of returning to power and 'restoring democracy,'" after eight years in exile. She was greeted by thousands of supporters in a homecoming parade in Karachi, marked by "a suicide bomb attack ... which killed over 140 people. Islamists terrorists, fighting an insurgency in north-western Pakistan, had previously threatened to kill Miss Bhutto. They are probably behind her murder."



Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October after the United States and Great Britain pressured General Pervez Musharraf to share power with her. I believed then that this was ultimately an empty bargain for Musharraf to make, knowing the likelihood that Bhutto wouldn't survive long after her return, despite any security provided to her.

Around 20,000 security personnel have been deployed to provide protection against threatened attacks by militants.

Intelligence reports suggested at least three jihadi groups linked to al-Qa'eda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks, according to a provincial official.

"She has an agreement with America. We will carry out attacks on Benazir Bhutto as we did on General Pervez Musharraf," said Haji Omar, a Taliban commander in the Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border.

Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister, was overthrown and hanged, while her two brothers were killed in mysterious circumstances, one shot in Karachi, the other found dead in a French Riviera hotel.

Now that she's dead, the election set for January 8th which her party was predicted to fare well in has been postponed. Given the circumstances of her murder, one wonders if this is what Musharraf had planned all along.

Miss Bhutto blamed senior army officers with Jihadist sympathies for that (previous) attack.

Alas, her supporters are now likely to blame her killing on the same shadowy army elite. And with stronger possible justification: Miss Bhutto’s killer is alleged to have approached to within 20 yards of her car, carrying a gun, dressed in a police uniform. At the least, such a lapse in the security afforded to Mr Musharraf and his supporters would be unimaginable.

Evolution and America

I spent yesterday in Reno, Nevada campaigning for John Edwards along with about 70 other volunteers. Part of our mission was to find out which candidate Democratic voters were likely to choose in the January 19th Nevada caucus and which issue was most important to them: the Iraq War, health care, global warming, education or immigration. One issue that wasn't on our list, and never came up, at least not with me, was evolution.

But if evolution is not a voting concern to Democrats, it appears to be with Republicans. Which brings me to the following: which statistic would you find most surprising?

• Only 14% of U.S. adults think that evolution is "definitely true," while about a third firmly reject the idea.
  
• The percentage of U.S. adults who are uncertain about evolution has risen from 7% to 21% in the past 20 years.
  
• Most Republicans -- 68% -- do not believe in evolution.
  
• Three candidates for President reject the science of evolution.
  
• One of them is now leading in the polls, at least in Iowa.

When Republican presidential candidates were asked back in May to raise their hands if they did not believe in evolution, only three did: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Brownback dropped out in October after failing to attract money or support from religious conservatives. Tancredo has never polled more than 3% in national polls, while his numbers in early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada) have vacillated between 1% and 4.8%. And then there is Huckabee.

It appears that the anti-science religious conservative voter has finally found its man in Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is a well spoken, affable, ordained Southern Baptist minister who is unafraid of taking controversial positions. When asked about evolution at the third Republican debate in June, Huckabee said:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. A person either believes that God created this process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own."

"If Americans want a president who doesn't believe in God, there's probably plenty of choices. But if I'm selected as president of this country, they'll have one who believes in those words that God did create."

"If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it."

Not only does he reject evolution, he also made comments in 1998, as blogger Callandor at "The Stone of Tear" points out, which suggest that Huckabee would like to see the United States become a Christian theocracy.

Is it conceivable that Americans could elect as President someone who does not believe in evolution, and furthermore rejects science? If so, what would be the ramifications to science education and research on global warming or stem cell research, not to mention our separation of church and state?

Edwards Scares Republicans

Republican strategist John Feehery made the following remark on MSNBC today. "The one that scares me is Edwards. Edwards is the one that scares me the most."

I've been telling my friends for the last six months -- John Edwards is the most electable Democrat running for President.

The latest polls back me up.

Joe Trippi, Senior Advisor for the Edwards campaign, just released comments on the poll released today by CNN.

CNN shows that John Edwards performs the best of any Democratic candidate against each of the leading Republicans.

According to the polling director for CNN, John is the only Democrat who beats all four of the leading Republicans. In one-on-one match-ups, John Edwards beats Mike Huckabee by 25 percent, Mitt Romney by 22 percent, John McCain by eight percent and Rudy Giuliani by 11 percent.

In fairness to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the poll shows they would also beat Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, although by slimmer margins. John McCain beat Clinton and tied Obama in the poll.

Is electability all that matters? Of course not.

"Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats," Keating Holland, CNN's polling director said. "Some might argue this shows that they are the most electable candidates in their respective parties.

"But Edwards is in third place among Democrats, and McCain is in fourth place on the GOP side. Maybe electability is not as important as it was in 2004."

Or maybe electability is always overrated. Remember John Kerry? Al Gore?

Electability aside, I think John Edwards is the best candidate. (More on that later.) Clinton and Obama are lesser candidates not only because of their positions on the issues, but also because they might lose to the eventual Republican nominee. And worse, both would mobilize rightwing Republican voters who might otherwise stay at home to get out and vote. That would be bad news in the 2008 state and local elections.

Inevitable Hillary, Absent Obama

My wife made a bet with me back in September, when Hillary Clinton appeared to be a sure thing as the Democratic Presidential Nominee. She bet me that Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, and I bet her that it would be someone, anyone else.

This wasn't just wishful thinking on my part. Remember how things looked back in the winter of 2003? Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were leading in Iowa, with Kerry and Edwards a distant third and fourth, and we know how that turned out. A lot happens in the few weeks leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire.

If you take a look at the latest national polls, or indicators like the Iowa Electronic Markets, Clinton did appear to be pulling away from the pack starting in March of this year. But the gap has been closing since late October/early November.



If any Democratic candidate has a chance at beating inevitable Hillary, its Barack Obama, or so goes the conventional wisdom.

Fundraising numbers in September certainly made Clinton seem like a sure thing. From July to October, Clinton raised as much as Obama and Edwards combined. But does money equate to electability? In modern political campaigns, more often than not, money determines the outcome. This is a sad statement about our democracy, but it's not a truism.

Of course the media is covering the election as a horse race, as it always does. And voters aren't paying nearly as close attention as they should be. For example, most voters probably missed the petition launched by the American Freedom Campaign, asking that the presidential candidates oppose torture. Last time I checked, Clinton and Obama were the only Democratic candidates who hadn't signed it.

Two Senate votes were similarly revealing. You may recall that the Senate, by a 76-22 vote, passed a non-binding resolution designating Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization that has killed U.S. forces in Iraq. Clinton voted for the amendment, while Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it. Obama missed the vote.

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel took Clinton to task for her vote during a debate back in September.

We're talking about ending the war; my God, we're just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today -- Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has offered another resolution, and it essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against, and I'm ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You're not going to get another shot at this, because what's happened if this war ensues -- we invade and they're looking for an excuse to do it.

And Obama was not even there to vote.

The Senate also passed an amendment condemning "personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus," i.e. MoveOn.org's full-page "General Betrayus" ad which ran in The New York Times. Clinton voted against it (as did Christopher Dodd). Obama didn't vote.

Where am I going with this? I think Hillary is a terrible candidate, and Obama lacks the courage of his convictions, whatever they may be. I also believe Clinton (and Obama) would lose to Romney or Giuliani in a general election, which is an avoidable disaster. Recent Zogby polling data "shows Democrat Hillary Clinton of New York would lose to every one of the top five Republican presidential contenders."

I guess what I'm saying is, I still feel pretty good about the bet I made with my wife three months ago. I hope I'm right about this.