Once the candidates got through their phase of making obvious and sympathetic statements about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, now it’s time to sound decisive and presidential.
Hillary Clinton calls for an independent, international investigation into the murder. She says an investigation from inside Pakistan would have no credibility and an American investigation would be politicized; she’d offer U.S. resources but says it must be international.
Secretary of State, um, presidential candidate Joe Biden talks about the crisis in Pakistan. He says he had a conversation with Benazir Bhutto today and will be talking with Pervez Musharraf tomorrow.
Sound Bite: “This administration, when it walked away from Afghanistan, figuratively speaking, I think that was a sign to Musharraf ‘I better cut my own deal with these folks in the Northwest province.’ ”
At Sunday’s Republican candidates debate in Des Moines, Iowa, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are asked about Senator Obama’s recent statements about taking military action in Pakistan against al-Qaeda.
Romney says “Barack Obama is confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies.” More Romney clips from the Iowa debate here.
“Pakistan has, unfortunately, not been making the effort that they should be making,” says Giuliani, but “. . . we should seek their permission if we ever had to take action there.” More Giuliani clips from the Iowa debate here.
And in response to another foreign policy question, Ron Paul says “We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars.”
