LAT Ignores Hillary Clinton Gaffe on Pakistan

Alright, so Hillary Clinton bills herself as better suited for the Oval O because she has foreign policy experience, plus eight years as First Lady. And we all remember that then-Gov. George W. Bush was mocked in 1999 for not knowing who the military dictator of Pakistan is.

So why the media silence on Hillary Clinton's goof in thinking that Pervez Musharraf is up for election in Pakistan? In fact the elections that were scheduled for January 8 prior to Benazir Bhutto's assassination are parliamentary elections.

Patterico sure picked up on the L.A. Times' lack of interest (see also here).

When I discussed this with fellow NewsBuster Seton Motley, he pointed out another excellent Web site with more coverage of Clinton's gaffe. Writes Thomas Houlahan at Middle East Times:

How credible is Hillary Clinton on Pakistan?

Last weekend after returning to my office from the television studios of a major network where I had done a brief segment on the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, I turned on CNN to watch their coverage of the Bhutto assassination's aftermath.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was telling Wolf Blitzer that she didn't think "the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all."

She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question.

"If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election," she told Blitzer, "then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow."

My immediate reaction was: "Did I hear that correctly?"

As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn't wish to stand for election any time soon.

The upcoming elections are for the next parliament. Musharraf was just elected president of Pakistan, overwhelmingly, by popularly elected electors on Oct. 6. He's just begun his five-year term as the president of the country. Why would he ever want to run for one seat in parliament? It wouldn't make sense.

However, I checked the transcript of the interview later. That's exactly what she said.