Thursday, August 21, 2008

Musharraf faces more accountability than Bush

S0 Perv Musharraf, who has been president of Pakistan since he took over in a military coup in 1999, has resigned. He faces more accountability for his malfeasance in office than President Bush has. But then impeachment, with which Musharraf was threatened, is not really based on the magnitude of the crimes involved but on the magnitude of the loss of political support. Bush certainly deserves to be impeached based on the way he has trashed the constitution, but the sad fact, ignored by some of the more enthusiastic advocates of impeachment, is that he would almost certainly have had enough support in Congress to avert conviction, perhaps even to avert impeachment, and significant elements of the country would have rallied around him. Too bad. Impeachment got a bad name when they tried it on Clinton.

Anyway, here's the Register's editorial on Musharraf's resignation. The two parties now in control aren't even speaking to each other and what is called a government in Pakistan really isn't one -- which might not be all that bad. Fortunately the Pakistani military still seems to have effective control of the nuclear weapons. I wouldn't be surprised if they took over he government before long. It's been a Pakistani pattern.

No comments: