If someone calls you and says "We're heading down to the political rally, why don't you meet us there?"  and they're in Pakistan, simply reply, "I'm not feeling well today but if I'm better tomorrow, I'll meet you at the funerals."

Some joke. But imagine if you knew going to a campaign event could become a matter of lfe and death and you went anyway. That would take some guts and deserve praise. So as we approach a presidential election year during which we will again and again hear about the USA's special relationship with democracy, we should think of Pakistan and hush our American mouths.

Then again we should remember, as Dennis Perrin did earlier this week, just how many assassinations there have been in this country, as well as the rest of the world. There really does seem to be a pattern.

Nevertheless, there's something inherently hilarious about watching American politicians explain why Pakistan proves that he or she is the perfect candidate for Sioux City.

Or Nashua.

It gets even funnier, in an awful sort of way, when you consider that even though Pakistan matters it doesn't matter because Hillary Clinton clinked glasses with Benazir Bhutto or John McCain spoke with her a few times. It certainly doesn't matter because Rudy Mussliani wants us to live in perma-post-9/11 fear. And it really doesn't matter because shameless American politicians' first instinct is to bask in what they see as the reflected glory glistening in a pool of Pakistani blood.

We're literally being told, "See, things happen in this world-- which is exactly why I should be in charge of it! How much clearer can this be made to you?"

How could we have been so blind to this planet's desperate need for Chris Dodd's firm and guiding hand?

I'm surprised we haven't seen one of the candidates reprise the Iowa-based Music Man.

Friends we've got TROUBLE -- right here in River City. TROUBLE with a capital 'T' and it rhymes with 'P' and it stands for 'PAKISTAN!'

It''s hard to figure what's most offensive-- their shamelessness, their opportunism, their arrogance, their stupidity, their ambition or their narcissism. I suppose what's most offensive is all of it ground and blended together and then extruded upon us in a red,white and blue, saccharine infused pile of feces.

When you investigate a crime, you ask, who had motive and opportunity? Judging by the comments of a  dozen or so American political opportunists, they all benefited from Bhutto's death. Nary a one of them was out trumpeting the cause of Benazir Bhutto in any of the thousands of stump stops they made prior to her assassination. Clearly they didn't care much about this woman until she was killed. I say round up all of them until someone confesses!

Hey, it's a better theory than the one getting floated by the Musharaf government: al Qaeda did it with a faulty moon roof!

In the Field Al Girodano boiled it down to American political reality:
I'll go out on a limb and say that those foreign-policy conscious voters are going to vote next week exactly as they would have if Bhutto were still alive: that it will be a zero-factor on the caucus results, except to the extent that candidates get thrown off their closing arguments to morbidly ride the funeral bandwagon into their own electoral crypts.

From Al's mouth to Allah's ear.

Pakistan matters because, among other things, it's a nuclear power, and an unstable nuclear power, at that. It matters most because Pakistan, a military dictatorship, is full of oppressed people, living in rational fear of violence from both a police state and an armed-to-the-teeth Islamic fundamentalist resistance -- not to mention those pesky border incursions by western powers currently occupying neighboring Afghanistan.

Speaking of occupants... did you see Bush comment on the assassination Thursday? His eyes weren't in synch. He looked colicky and cow-licky. But Bhutto had been assassinated and so they had to slap some water on his face and wheel him out there. It looked to me as if he'd been doing some serious holiday celebrating and his drug of choice wasn't figgie pudding. This is only somewhat evident in online video but in high def, he looked pretty woozy, which was fitting considering how he's permeated with the stench of Pervez Musharraf.

According to CNN's Pentagon Apologist Barbara Starr, the US military "fears Al Qaeda" is behind Bhutto's murder. What it  really fears is that al Qaeda isn't behind it but Musharraf is. Or worse, both are behind it. Especially since the USA has financed that petty little thug with billions of untraceable, directly deposited dollars. He will be a billionaire until the day he dies, an event unlikely to occur peacefully nor during his sleep. Thanks toTom Duffy of the Garlic for reminding me what I should have known in November concerning this enormous fiscal funnel.

The best thing about this dog-delayed post is its tardiness allowed my friend Mr. Perrin to chime in again on this matter. Please click the links in his piece because they deliver insight and lucidity not available to most western consumers of information.