Mike on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” re: Bhutto Assassination

Mike was fantastic!

The two main questions he was asked were: 1) whether or not he was ready--today--to be commander-in-chief to respond to such crises. He said "That's what Governor's do", and proceeded to list some of the types of crises--school shootings, tornadoes--he had to respond to during 11 years as Arkansas Governor, and

2)what the implications are for US policy toward Pakistan, specifically, whether the US was pushing too hard for a reconciliation between Musharraf and Bhutto. Mike referred back to his September foreign policy speech in which he spoke in detail about US-Pakistan relations. Mike then said how both Musharraf and Bhutto represented moderate, secular elements, and that what the US needed to do was lean on Musharraf to either go after the Taliban and the terrorists or let us do it. He gave the example of the recent call-off of a special ops attack on Bin Laden's top deputy, because we didn't want to offend Musharraf because we didn't get his permission. Mike reminded the audience of the billions of dollars the US has poured into the Musharraf regime and how we needed to use that leverage to go after Bin Laden.

I think Mike really sounded like he had a much better handle on the role of the US and its President than President Bush, who has been intent on using US influence to push democracy on other countries, rather than using it to pursue our legitimate national interests, like going after Bin Laden.

This was a home run if I ever witnessed one in the campaign: Mike used the opportunity to give a valuable lesson in US foreign policy to anyone fortunate enough to watch the show. Impressive!