The Political Character of Benazir Bhutto

I implored readers in an earlier post to "join me in reflecting on the awesome life of a freedom crusader, Benazir Bhutto, 54."

I thought I might get a little flak on "freedom crusader," a line fairly synonymous with "neoconservative," but I've had no takers so far.

Not everyone had glowing words for Bhutto, however, considering Ralph Peters' commentary today on Bhutto's political character. Peters calls 'em like he sees 'em, and his view of Bhutto is unblinkered by her frequent and lofty calls for Pakistani democracy:

FOR the next several days, you're going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Her country's better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.

We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.

She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and "hardheaded" journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat.

In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani. Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.

Educated in expensive Western schools, she permitted Pakistan's feeble education system to rot - opening the door to Islamists and their religious schools.

During her years as prime minister, Pakistan went backward, not forward. Her husband looted shamelessly and ended up fleeing the country, pursued by the courts. The Islamist threat - which she artfully played both ways - spread like cancer.

Peters is more generous in noting that Bhutto's death might be a real catalyst for progressive change in Pakistan. Other than that, I have serious disagreements with his analysis.

Bhutto certainly enjoyed her privilege and power (as the New York Times' obituary notes), but the former prime minister also genuinely fought for the improvement of Pakistani lives. As Husain Haqqani noted in today's Wall Street Journal:

In 1988, at the age of 35, Bhutto became the youngest prime minister in Pakistan's troubled history, and the first woman to lead a Muslim nation in the modern age. For her supporters, she stood for women's empowerment, human rights and mass education. Her detractors accused her of many things, from corruption to being too close to the U.S.

During her second tenure as prime minister, Pakistan became one of the 10 emerging capital markets of the world. The World Health Organization praised government efforts in the field of health. Rampant narcotics problems were tackled and several drug barons arrested. Bhutto increased government spending on education and 46,000 new schools were built.

Thousands of teachers were recruited with the understanding that a secular education, covering multiple study areas (particularly technical and scientific education), would improve the lives of Pakistanis and create job opportunities critical to self-empowerment. But Pakistan's political turbulence, and her constant battle with the country's security establishment, never allowed her to take credit for these achievements.

For years, her image was tarnished by critics who alleged that she did not deliver on her promise. During the early days after Mr. Musharraf's decision to support the U.S.-led war against terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, conventional wisdom in Washington wrote her off. But Pakistan's constant drift into extremism, and Mr. Musharraf's inability to win Pakistani hearts and minds, changed that.

In fact, as Michael Goldfarb notes, Peters' analysis is an outlier. For example, Christopher Hitchens recalls Bhutto as extraordinarily courageous:

The sternest critic of Benazir Bhutto would not have been able to deny that she possessed an extraordinary degree of physical courage. When her father was lying in prison under sentence of death from Pakistan's military dictatorship in 1979, and other members of her family were trying to escape the country, she boldly flew back in. Her subsequent confrontation with the brutal Gen. Zia-ul-Haq cost her five years of her life, spent in prison. She seemed merely to disdain the experience, as she did the vicious little man who had inflicted it upon her.

And while I'm no fan of Arianna Huffington, I have to admire the kinds words she wrote in honor of Bhutto:

She was fearlessness epitomized. Many will debate her political successes and failures, her personal probity in public office, the charges of corruption against her and of course the national security implications of her death, but for now I'm just filled with a profound sadness about the end of a woman that was always brimming with life.

I have to agree with Goldfarb on this one:

I'm struck by how many Americans have offered these kind of personal anecdotes as a testament to Bhutto's character. She had written a diary at Slate, a blog at the Huffington Post, and apparently kept a correspondence with Mark Siegel--and this is the tip of the iceberg I'm sure. Christopher Hitchens offers a more even account, but he's no less troubled by her death (he, too, had personal history with Bhutto). Of course, not everyone is sad to see her go, but for all her faults, she was right on what mattered most--she was an ally in the war against Islamic extremism.

Also, be sure to check this new video, with footage of the last seconds of Bhutto's life:

As I read more about Bhutto, I'm convinced that my words yesterday were on target. I wrote:

Sometimes there's an individual connection to world leaders and events that requires some detachment and perspective. I do know that Bhutto's death will bring change to South Asia, and not for the better. We can be sure that Bhutto killers - radical Islamists acting independently, or with the green light from Pakistan's security service, the ISI - will view the attack as a successful engagement in the fight to overturn American influence in the region, to destabilize the Pakistani regime, and to pave the way for religious fundamentalists to come to power.

The Wall Street Journal lays out the specifics of such concerns in more detail:

For decades, the U.S. has watched warily as Pakistan has tangled with India, developed nuclear weapons and fostered alliances with militant Islamist fighters.

Now, the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is stoking fears both of new unrest in her country and of ripple effects in the region as extremist groups are emboldened by the demise of a secular, modern Muslim politician.

Pakistan has been on the front lines of the Bush administration's war on terror since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Washington insisted that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf sever ties to the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, which harbored Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. Pakistan also faced pressure to arrest and imprison militant Islamic activists and fight insurgents spilling over from Afghanistan.

But Pakistan has been a leaky bulwark against radicalism, creating constant friction with the U.S. as the war on terror drifts into its seventh year. Western regions of Pakistan, often controlled by local tribes, are viewed as sanctuaries for newly minted militant groups as well as vestiges of the Taliban and al Qaeda -- and perhaps Mr. bin Laden himself. Investigators deconstructing recent al Qaeda plots in Europe and the Middle East often find their roots stretching back to Pakistan.

Some U.S. intelligence analysts fear Ms. Bhutto's assassination could be part of a broader al Qaeda and Taliban offensive against Pakistan's secular leadership, focused on spreading militant influence inside the country. Success in this endeavor would pose a direct threat to the U.S. and the broader Western world.

"The global reverberations of yesterday's attacks underscore the interdependency between the United States and Pakistan," said Henry A. Crumpton, a former State Department counterterrorism chief and top Central Intelligence Agency official who led U.S. intelligence operations in Afghanistan in 2002. "The U.S. interests there are so important, whether it's the issue of nuclear weapons, the issue of counterterrorism or the issue of Pakistan-India relations."

Pakistan is the sole Islamic nation possessing a nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration has spent nearly $11 billion on aid and other programs in Pakistan since 9/11. The money has supported the nation's fight against al Qaeda. It has also been used to help safeguard Islamabad's atomic weapons.

Some analysts described fears of the "demonstration effect" of Ms. Bhutto's killing on Islamist militants seeking power through the gun in Central and South Asia, as well as other Muslim nations. The threat of violence could diminish the ranks of those willing to cooperate with the U.S.

"The whole currency of political assassination could rise" as a result of Ms. Bhutto's death, said Robert Grenier, who served as the CIA's Islamabad station chief from 1999 to 2002. "The threat could have the intended intimidating impact and make it harder for any other figures to stand up" against extremism in Pakistan or elsewhere.

See more commentary and analysis on Pakistan's crisis at Memeorandum.

John McCain: The Choice is Clear

John McCain's got a new campaign advertisement running in New Hampshire, touting his windfall newspapers endorsements in the Granite State:

Don't miss McCain's Christmas spot as well:

Also, check out my morning post on the increasing attention to McCain's foreign policy credentials following the Bhutto assassination.

Earmarking Ron Paul

Ron Paul really is a source of endless fascination - a true political oddity, his popular following lends some credence to the notion of the paranoid style of American politics.

I've posted a lot on Paul, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

For awhile there, as soon as I put up a new Paul entry, the online Paulbots would pop out of the woodwork with a relentless frenzy of attacks. In the comment thread to one of these exchanges, I noted:

I'd bet if I researched his record there'd be some big boondoggle project squeezed in somewhere to put the lie to all his "limited government" propaganda.

This line prompted some salivation from the guy at Liberty's Legacy, an unreconstructed Paulbot, who hammered back:

"I'd bet if I researched his record"

What an original idea. Maybe you should have done that before popping off?

I'm reminded of this exchange in the wake of Paul's appearance last Sunday on Meet the Press. Paul was all over the place, trying to deflect Tim Russert's questions. Check the transcript, especially noting how many times Paul backed away from the number of whack-out statements he's made over the years. How about this one, on doing away with public education in the United States:

MR. RUSSERT: It was--when you ran for president in 1988, you called for the abolition of public schools.

REP. PAUL: I, I bet that's a misquote. I, I do not recall that. I'd like to know where that came from, because I went...

Yeah, I'd bet!

But you got to love Paul's hypocrisy on federal pork barrel spending - the old earmark boondoggle! Paul's against all the pork, right? Nope, he's voted for earmarks, which he says is just "returning money to his constituents."

Check out this MSNBC story for some background:

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, defended his efforts in Congress to bring home money to his Texas district, despite his long-held aversion to big government and congressional votes to reign in federal spending.

"I've never voted for an earmark in my life," the Texas congressman said under questioning on NBC's "Meet the Press" about reports that he has requested hundreds of millions of dollars for special projects in his home district.

"I put them in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back," said Paul, who likened it to taking a tax credit. "I'm against the tax system, but I take all my tax credits. I want to get their money back for the people."

The 10-term congressman and longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination added that although he has requested special projects known as earmarks, he ultimately ends up voting against them in the House. Paul is known in Congress as "Dr. No" for his votes against some types of government spending, including a medal for Pope John Paul II and civil rights leader Rosa Parks because of the cost to taxpayers.

For his home state, however, Paul has sought money for water projects, a nursing program, to expand a hospital cancer center and to promote Texas shrimp.

I guess it's not really earmarking if you're just returning your local taxpayer's money!

But hey, I better watch my back before some of Paul defenders tar me as part of the vast anti-Paulista conspiracy seeking Paul's political annihilation!

I recommend just watching Paul trash himself in the interview:

That's just part one, but check Google for more!

John McCain, Pakistan, and Election '08

As readers here know well, I've backed John McCain's presidential campaign all year, especially noting McCain's top credentials on foreign policy (see some of my earlier posts supporting McCain, here, here, here, here , here, and here).

Now, not unpredictably, McCain's stature is rising amid the turmoil in South Asia.

Red State, for example, just hopped on the McCain bandwagon:

The world has been in a state of madness for several years. But, with this morning's news, I have little doubt it will spiral further out of control.

Already whispers have begun that if Fred Thompson can't pull off Iowa, conservatives will need to rally around a candidate and that candidate is most likely John McCain.

Is John McCain the man to lead America? The Union Leader said yes. And they just might be right.

Robert Novak, in a column yesterday, confirmed the new conventional wisdom that McCain's rock-like foreign policy bona fides make him the main man against Hillary Clinton in the general election:

He never has been popular inside the party, even when it seemed he might be its anointed candidate....

But when Republicans get together privately, they tend to agree that McCain is the Republican most likely to defeat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Even while some consider the old naval aviator as cranky and hot-tempered, he has not exhibited those negative characteristics in debates. Rather, he exudes a heroic aura that goes beyond managing New York City or the Utah Olympics. That quality is shown in his Christmas card television ad depicting a North Vietnamese prison guard making a cross in the dirt.

The Politico notes further how the crisis in Pakistan helps McCain:

John McCain, older than dirt and with more scars than Frankenstein as he likes to say, suddenly wasn’t looking so bad.

Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Pakistan and the political conversation in America had changed.

Which means at least for a little while Republicans here were not thinking about which presidential candidate was tougher on immigration or which had the best Christian conservative credentials.

Some were thinking about who might be the best leader in an international crisis and John McCain says he can fill that bill.

“My theme has been throughout this campaign that I am the one with the experience, the knowledge and the judgment,” McCain told reporters after a speech to an overflow crowd at an Elks Lodge here [in Iowa]. “So, perhaps it (i.e. the turmoil caused by the assassination) may serve to enhance those credentials.”

It doesn’t matter to McCain that 99 percent of Americans probably could not find Pakistan on a map. What matters is that most Americans can understand what it would mean if the wrong people in Pakistan were suddenly in charge of that country’s nuclear weapons.

I don't know if McCain will see much improvement in the Iowa caucuses coming out of the current international crisis. New Hampshire's a toss-up at this point, however, so McCain's intense campaign in the Granite State may get a lift from international events.

After Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest amid a wave of unrest following the assassination (the New York Times has the story).

What's next, now, for Pakistan and the world? USA Today provides some background analysis on the fallout to U.S. strategy from Bhutto's murder:

For the United States, Harvard-educated Benazir Bhutto was a combination of white knight and Trojan horse — the key piece in a belated-but-promising attempt to bring stability to the world's most dangerous nation.

The hope was that the popular former prime minister could recapture the job after parliamentary elections next month, then strengthen democratic institutions, helping to keep Pakistan's nuclear weapons away from its large radicalized Islamic population.

That strategy was left in ruins Thursday by Bhutto's tragic assassination.

Not only did the killing remove Bhutto from the picture without any obvious successor, it further weakened strongman President Pervez Musharraf, who for all his dictatorial ways is a foe of the extremists. Pakistan is now at risk of escalating street violence and stepped-up suicide bombings that would invite a new, harsh crackdown by Musharraf. Such a spiral would encourage more political instability. It would also complicate efforts to find Osama bin Laden, believed to be hiding in Pakistan, and to uproot al-Qaeda training camps there.

While the killing underscored the limits of U.S. influence, it doesn't mean giving up on the only strategy that can prevent the cauldron that is Pakistan from exploding. In the short term, the United States has no choice other than to support Musharraf. For the longer term, it must find new champions of democracy.

Here's the Wall Street Journal's assessment:

We will learn more in coming days about the circumstances of Bhutto's death, apparently a combined shooting and suicide bombing at a political rally in Rawalpindi in which more than 20 others were also murdered. But there's little question the attack, which had every hallmark of an al Qaeda or Taliban operation, is an event with ramifications for the broader war on terror. With the jihadists losing in Iraq and having a hard time hitting the West, their strategy seems to be to make vulnerable Pakistan their principal target, and its nuclear arsenal their principal prize.

In this effort, murdering Bhutto was an essential step. Hers is the highest profile scalp the jihadists can claim since their assassination of Egypt's Anwar Sadat in 1981. She also uniquely combined broad public support with an anti-Islamist, pro-Western outlook and all the symbolism that came with being the most prominent female leader in the Muslim world. Her death throws into disarray the complex and fragile efforts to re-establish a functional, legitimate government following next month's parliamentary elections, which seemed set to hand her a third term as prime minister.

This is exactly the kind of uncertainty in which jihadists would thrive. No doubt, too, there are some in the Pakistani military who will want to use Bhutto's killing as an excuse to cancel the elections and reconsolidate their own diminished grip on power. In the immediate wake of the assassination, members of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party have accused President Pervez Musharraf of being complicit in it. But whatever Mr. Musharraf's personal views of Bhutto--with whom he had an on-again, off-again political relationship--his own position has only been weakened by her death. It would be weakened beyond repair if he sought to capitalize on it by preventing the democratic process from taking its course.

Musharraf would be weakened by the very forces he surreptitiously promoted in his balancing game between radical Islam and the West. So far, though, it appears he's committed to fighting the terrorists and upholding Pakistan's rule of law.

I'll likely have more comment on Pakistan later. I will note now that the domestic political debate is already in full steam, and the hard-left forces are out to further demonize the Bush administration's war policy. FireDogLake's going so far as to blame the administration for Bhutto's decision to return to Pakistan, and hence Bush shares complicity in her murder.

Of course, there's no credibility to these anti-administration attacks - they're simply more nihilist screeds, designed to help bring to power in the U.S. forces aligned with those who we are fighting internationally.

Bhutto planned on a return to Pakistan, believing it was her destiny to support democratization of her people. The real culprits are the forces of terror who want to overthrow the Pakistani regime and install a fundamentalist dictatorship in Pakistan, which would lead to even more death and destruction.

Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007

I've been busy today grading papers and exchanging Christmas gifts. I have, of course, been watching the news on the Bhutto assassination.

I'm still taking in all the information - and thus holding off on more detailed political analysis until the morning.

Note, though, that I'm personally mourning Bhutto's death. I saw her speak in 1992, which was shortly before her return to power as Pakistan's Prime Minister, from 1993 to 1996.

Sometimes there's an individual connection to world leaders and events that requires some detachment and perspective. I do know that Bhutto's death will bring change to South Asia, and not for the better. We can be sure that Bhutto killers - radical Islamists acting independently, or with the green light from Pakistan's security service, the ISI - will view the attack as a successful engagement in the fight to overturn American influence in the region, to destabilize the Pakistani regime, and to pave the way for religious fundamentalists to come to power.

Who knows what will happen at this point? There's plenty of analysis at Memeorandum. I'll be reading and thinking about the crisis tonight, and will update in the morning with additional entries.

For now, please join me in reflecting on the awesome life of a freedom crusader, Benazir Bhutto, 54. Here's the New York Times obituary:

Charismatic, striking and a canny political operator, Benazir Bhutto, 54, was reared amid the privileges of Pakistan’s aristocracy and the ordeals of its turbulent politics. Smart, ambitious and resilient, she endured her father’s execution and her own imprisonment at the hands of a military dictator to become the country’s — and the Muslim world’s — first female leader.

A deeply polarizing figure, Ms. Bhutto, the “daughter of Pakistan,” was twice elected prime minister and twice expelled from office in a swirl of corruption charges that propelled her into self-imposed exile in London for much of the past decade. She returned home this fall, billing herself as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and a tribune of democracy.

She was killed on Thursday in a combined shooting and bombing attack at a rally in Rawalpindi, one of a series of open events she attended in spite of a failed assassination attempt against her the day she returned to Pakistan in October.

A woman of grand aspirations with a taste for complex political maneuvering, Ms. Bhutto was first elected prime minister in 1988 at the age of 35. The daughter of one of Pakistan’s most charismatic and democratically inclined prime ministers, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she inherited the mantle of the populist Peoples Party that he founded, and which she came to personify.

Despite numerous accusations of corruption and an evident predilection for luxury, Ms. Bhutto, the pale-skinned scion of a wealthy landowning family, successfully cast herself as a savior of Pakistan’s millions of poor and disenfranchised. She inspired devotion among her followers, even in exile, and the image of her floating through a frenzied crowd in her gauzy white head scarf became iconic.

In October, she staged a high-profile return to her home city of Karachi, drawing hundreds of thousands of supporters to an 11-hour rally and leading a series of political demonstrations in opposition to the country’s military leader, President Pervez Musharraf.

But in a foreshadowing of the attack that killed her, the triumphal return parade was bombed, killing at least 134 of her supporters and wounding more than 400. Ms. Bhutto herself narrowly escaped harm and shouted at later rallies, “Bhutto is alive!”

Despite her courageous, or rash, defiance of danger, her political plans were sidetracked from the moment she set foot in Pakistan: She had been negotiating for months with Mr. Musharraf over a power-sharing arrangement, only to see the general declare emergency rule instead.

The political dance she has deftly performed since her return — one moment standing up to President Musharraf, the next seeming to accommodate him — stirred hope and distrust among Pakistanis. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford, she brought the backing of the governments in Washington and London, where she impressed with her political lineage and considerable charm and was viewed as a palatable alternative to the increasingly unpopular Mr. Musharraf.

But her record in power left ample room for skepticism. During her two stints in that job — first from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996 — she developed a reputation for acting imperiously and impulsively. She faced deep questions about her personal probity in office, which led to corruption cases against her in Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Pakistan. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was jailed for eight years in Pakistan on corruption charges before his release on bail in 2004.

During her years in office, as during those of her rival, the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan ran up enormous and unserviceable foreign debts and billions of dollars in foreign aid went unaccounted for. Ms. Bhutto, though progressive in her approach to Islam, was not above bending to the will of religious conservatives for when politically expedient.

Ms. Bhutto grew up in the most rarefied atmosphere the poor, turbulent country had to offer. One longtime friend and adviser, Peter W. Galbraith, a former American ambassador to Croatia, recalled meeting Ms. Bhutto 1962 when they were children: he the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, the economist and American ambassador to India; she the daughter of the future Pakistani prime minister. Mr. Galbraith’s father was accompanying Jacqueline Kennedy to a horse show in Lahore.

The two met again at Harvard, where Mr. Galbraith remembered Ms. Bhutto arriving as a prim, cake-baking 16-year-old fresh from a Karachi convent.

Ms. Bhutto often spoke of how her father encouraged her to study the lives of legendary female leaders, including Indira Gandhi and Joan of Arc, and as a young woman, she observed his political maneuvering up close.

After her father’s death — he was hanged by another general who seized power, Zia ul-Haq — Ms. Bhutto stepped into the spotlight as his successor. She called herself chairperson for life of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, a seemingly odd title in an organization based on democratic ideals and one she has acknowledged quarreling over with her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, in the early 1990s.

Until her death, Ms. Bhutto ruled the party with an iron hand, jealously guarding her position, even while leading the party in absentia for nearly a decade.

Members of her party saluted her return to Pakistan, saying she was the best choice against President Musharraf. Chief among her attributes, they said, was her sheer determination.

But her egotism and her proclivity for back-room deals provoked distrust among detractors and some supporters.

“She believes she is the chosen one, that she is the daughter of Bhutto and everything else is secondary,” said Feisal Naqvi, a corporate lawyer in Lahore who knew Ms. Bhutto.

Ms. Bhutto’s marriage to Mr. Zardari was arranged by her mother, a fact that Ms. Bhutto has often said was easily explained, even for a modern, highly educated Pakistani woman. To be acceptable to the Pakistani public as a politician she could not be a single woman, and what was the difference, she would ask, between such a marriage and computer dating?

Mr. Zardari, 51, is known for his love of polo and other perquisites of the good life like fine clothes, expensive restaurants, homes in Dubai and London, and an apartment in New York. He was minister of investment in Ms. Bhutto’s second government. And it was from that perch that he made many of the deals that haunted Ms. Bhutto, and him, in the courts.

There were accusations that the couple had illegally taken $1.5 billion from the state. It is a figure Ms. Bhutto vigorously contested.

Indeed, one of Ms. Bhutto’s main objectives in seeking to return to power was to restore the reputation of her husband, especially after his prison term, said Abdullah Riar, a former senator in the Pakistani Parliament and a former colleague of Ms. Bhutto’s.

“She told me, ‘Time will prove he is the Nelson Mandela of Pakistan,’” Mr. Riar said.

Photo: Bhutto, waving to supporters, moments before here death, from the New York Times.

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. Here's the New York Times' report:

The Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated near the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto, who was appearing at a political campaign rally, was fired upon at close range by a gunman, and then struck by shrapnel from a blast that the government said was caused by a suicide bomber.

Ms. Bhutto, who had twice been the country’s prime minister and was a leading contender to be the next prime minister after elections in January, was declared dead by doctors at a hospital in Rawalpindi at 6:16 p.m. local time. At least a dozen more people were killed in the attack, but some reports said there were at least 20 dead.

The exact circumstances surrounding the assassination were still unclear. Senior officials in Ms. Bhutto’s party said she had finished addressing the rally and was sitting in a car waving at the crowd when she was hit in the head by a sniper in a nearby building. They said the car moved on for another 50 yards before a suicide attacker blew himself up.

Other witnesses described a single assassin opening fire on Ms. Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up. Dr. Abbas Hayat, professor of pathology at Rawalpindi General Hospital where Ms. Bhutto was taken, said doctors tried to revive her for 35 minutes, but that she had shrapnel wounds and head injuries and was in heart failure. He said he could not confirm whether she had bullet injuries.

A close aide to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed Islamic militants for the assassination, and said it was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Mr. Musharraf declared a three-day mourning period, and condemnation of the assassination flowed in from around the world. President Bush said “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly attack by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.” Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, called it “an assault on stability.” Ms. Bhutto’s death is the latest blow to Pakistan’s treacherous political situation, and leaves her party leaderless in the short term and unable to effectively compete in hotly contested parliamentary elections that are two weeks away, according to Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani political and military analyst.

The assassination also adds to the enormous pressure on the Bush administration over Pakistan, which has sunk billions in aid into the country without accomplishing its main goals of finding the Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or ending the activities of Islamic militants and the Taliban in border areas with Afghanistan.

Hundreds of supporters had gathered at Ms. Bhutto’s campaign rally, which was being held at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for rallies and speeches, in Rawalpindi, the garrison city near Islamabad.

Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt, and shards of glass were strewn about the ground. Pakistani television cameras captured images of ambulances pushing through crowds of dazed and injured people at the scene of the assassination.

Farah Ispahani, a party official from Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “It is too soon to confirm the number of dead from the party’s side. Private television channels are reporting twenty dead.” Television channels were also quoting police sources as saying that at least 14 people were dead.

At the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was taken, a large number of police began to cordon off the area as angry party workers smashed windows. Many protesters shouted “Musharraf Dog.” One man was crying hysterically, saying his sister had been killed. Dozens of people in the crowed beat their chests and chanted slogans against Mr. Musharraf.

Nahid Khan, a close aide to Ms. Bhutto, was sobbing in a room next to the operating theater, and the corridors of the hospital swarmed with mourners.

Ms. Bhutto had been warned by the government before her return to Pakistan that she faced threats to her security. In October, Ms. Bhutto survived another deadly suicide attack in the southern city of Karachi on the day she returned from years of self-imposed exile abroad to contest the parliamentary elections. Ms. Bhutto blamed extremist Islamic groups who she said wanted to take over the country for that attack, which narrowly missed her but killed 134 people. But she also complained that the government had taken insufficient steps to safeguard her parade.

The government has maintained that she ignored their warnings against such public gatherings and that holding them placed herself and her followers in unnecessary danger.

The assassination comes just days after Mr. Musharraf lifted a state of emergency in the country, which he had used to suspend the Constitution and arrest thousands of political opponents, and which he said he had imposed in part because of terrorist threats by extremists in Pakistan.

With frustration in Washington growing over Mr. Musharraf’s shortcomings, and his delays in returning the country to civilian rule, Ms. Bhutto had become an appealing solution for the country. She was openly critical of Mr. Musharraf’s ineffectiveness at dealing with Islamic militants and welcomed American involvement, unlike another Musharraf rival and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

Bush administration officials began working behind the scenes over the summer to help Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Musharraf create a power-sharing deal to orchestrate a transition to democracy that would leave Mr. Musharraf in the presidency, while not making a mockery of President Bush’s attempts to push democracy in the Muslim world.

Ms. Bhutto’s assassination immediately raised questions about whether the parliamentary elections scheduled for January will now go ahead or be postponed. Mr. Musharraf was carrying out an emergency meeting with top government officials Thursday following Ms. Bhutto’s death, the aide to Mr. Musharraf said. He said no decision had been made on whether to delay the national elections.

The aide dismissed complaints from members of Ms. Bhutto’s party that the government failed to provide adequate security for Ms. Bhutto.

I will provide commentary and analysis on the assassination in upcoming posts.

Photo: New York Times

Black Candidates and the Presidency

It's a question I've been asking my students all year: Can a black candidate win the White House in 2008?

The phenomenal rise of Barack Obama in presidential politics is the obvious catalyst for such thinking. I've been paying close attention to Obama since his mercurial speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I'm attracted to his calls for greater individual responsibility in the black community, and I find his own personal charisma to be astonishing.

Can Obama win the presidency next year? He's moving closer to that goal than any African-American in history. Today's Washington Post examines what the authors call "The Steepest Climb," the long struggle for black candidates seeking the presidency:

Whether enough voters can envision Barack Obama in the Oval Office will be revealed shortly. But some black politicians believe the time is right, as the country has witnessed the gradual rise of African Americans in leadership roles -- from coaching major sports franchises to presiding over corporate boardrooms. Breakthroughs in the popular culture, where many Americans form their impressions of each other, have been among the hardest to achieve.

Norman Jewison, who directed the 1967 hit movie "In the Heat of the Night," recalled that some newspapers refused to take ads for the film, which featured Sidney Poitier as a sharp-minded detective from Philadelphia investigating a murder in a Southern town. The movie went on to earn five Oscars, including one for Best Picture. "I think [the film] woke up a lot of people in the Deep South," Jewison says. "I don't think they'd ever seen a black character on the screen as smart and talented as Sidney."

More than three decades later, actor Dennis Haysbert was cast as David Palmer, a U.S. senator who is elected the nation's first black president in the television drama "24." When Haysbert encounters strangers who recognize him, it is often this role that they want to discuss. "I've lost track of how many times people have asked me to run for president," Haysbert says, adding that he believes the role had "a major impact" on how black politicians are perceived, "simply from the feedback I get from people from all walks of life."

And yet there are statistics that are not so heartening. Less than 4 percent of the nation's elected officials are black, and 90 percent of them represent predominantly black or predominantly black-and-Hispanic constituencies. Thus, not many black politicians have won elections when the majority of voters were white. Only three black U.S. senators and two black governors have been elected since Reconstruction.

As a consequence, only a handful of blacks have even dared to run for president, and virtually all them are civic activists such as comedian Dick Gregory, whose 1968 write-in campaign garnered just over 47,000 votes, perennial third-party candidate Lenora Fulani, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose 2004 Democratic campaign fizzled. The Rev. Jesse Jackson? We'll get to him in a minute.

"We've always been conflicted about this issue of running, because the heavy hanging cloud has been that a black can't win," says University of Maryland political scientist Ron Walters, who was Jackson's top issues adviser during his 1984 campaign.

Read the whole thing.

What's interesting about Obama's campaign is that we've yet to see the kind of subterranean racial politics that surrounds black candidates at some point in every election year, especially when victory seems close at hand. In 2006 we saw that kind of controversy surrounding Harold Ford, who ran for the Senate from Tennessee:

The Tennessee Senate race, one of the most competitive and potentially decisive battles of the midterm election, became even more unpredictable this week after a furor over a Republican television commercial that stood out even in a year of negative advertising.

The commercial, financed by the Republican National Committee, was aimed at Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the black Democrat from Memphis whose campaign for the Senate this year has kept the Republicans on the defensive in a state where they never expected to have trouble holding the seat.

The spot, which was first broadcast last week and was disappearing from the air on Wednesday, featured a series of people in mock man-on-the street interviews talking sarcastically about Mr. Ford and his stands on issues including the estate tax and national security.

The controversy erupted over one of the people featured: an attractive white woman, bare-shouldered, who declares that she met Mr. Ford at a “Playboy party,” and closes the commercial by looking into the camera and saying, with a wink, “Harold, call me.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Ford, who is single, said he was one of 3,000 people who attended a Playboy party at the Super Bowl last year in Jacksonville, Fla.

Critics asserted that the advertisement was a clear effort to play to racial stereotypes and fears, essentially, playing the race card in an election where Mr. Ford is trying to break a century of history and become the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.

Will we see a new round of racial politics in 2008? So far the Democratic primary race has avoided such politics, but often GOP-aligned groups mount racially-tinged advertisements in the general election (remember Willie Horton?)

Have voters tired of such racial politics? Keith Reeves, a political scientist at Swarthmore College, has written on black candidates in Voting Hopes Or Fears?: White Voters, Black Candidates & Racial Politics.

Reeves wrote a brief essay folllowing the 2006 election, which recaps his thesis and looks to the future of black electoral politics:

Ten years ago, I published Voting Hopes or Fears? a path-breaking, albeit controversial, book that examines the thorny subject of how black candidates competing in majority-white settings fare, especially against the backdrop of the kind of racially charged campaigns we've seen this election cycle. In it, I argued that decades after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, whites, by and large, remain resistant to the election of blacks to public office. That widespread resistance can be explained, in large part, by election campaign appeals to whites' racial fears and sentiments. Based on fresh empirical evidence examining white voters' attitudes towards black candidates and the racial framing of campaign news coverage, I documented that racial discrimination against black candidates is contemporary, specific, and identifiable....

A significantly changed electoral landscape in 2006 produced something of a political avalanche of opposition - against just about all things Republican (including three high-profile black candidates who ran under the GOP-banner: football-great Lynn Swann of Pennsylvania and Kenneth Blackwell of Ohio, running for governor in their respective states; and Michael Steele who ran a well-orchestrated campaign for a Senate seat in Maryland).

"Have we witnessed the long-awaited death of the Willie Hortonesque political commercial?"

Perhaps, "yes."

For one, changing demographics in both states - and in the country, at large - have a lot to do with voters' disgust of "Swift-Boating" of the racial kind. Meanwhile, moderate, Independent voters appear especially turned off by the racial undercurrents in political advertising.

And then there is the political pressure being brought to bear in the financial marketplace. Reportedly, black leaders and union groups pressured Wal-Mart to cut ties with one of its consultants whose brainchild was the incendiary anti-Ford ad.

But I strongly suspect that there is one other latent factor at work: the looming presence of Illinois senator Barack Obama, a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

In Harold Ford, Jr. and Deval Patrick, white voters saw a bit of Senator Obama in each man: Ivy-League, moderate, articulate, non-threatening, charismatic black men who excite cross-racial appeal while moving past the racial divisions of the civil rights generation.

If there is a broader lesson to be gleaned from Patrick's overwhelming victory and Ford's narrow defeat, it is that, finally, white voters no longer have the appetite for the nasty racial politics historically served up by political campaign operatives.

And to that I say: "Run, Barack! Run!"

I respect Reeves' research, and I hope he's correct that voters will reject subterranean racial politics in 2008.

Barack Obama's rise is extremely promising. Indeed, the Obama campaign's one of the most important developments in American politics since Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign of 1988. Of course, Obama's going to have to get back to the language of personal responsibility if he hopes to have more cross-racial, cross-party appeal. But if anyone can do it, he's the one.

The Real Media Story on Iraq

I've put up a fair number of entries covering public opinion on the Iraq war, but this entry from Wordsmith over at Sparks from the Anvil is excellent:

Curt writes:

brutally Honest wonders why this isn't front page news. I think we all know the answer to that one...

Yes, and the latest Pew Research Center findings, based upon a study of more than 1,100 news articles from January through October of 2007, confirms what we've pointed out on a regular basis:

Through the first 10 months of the year, the picture of Iraq that Americans received from the news media was, in considerable measure, a grim one. Roughly half of the reporting has consisted of accounts of daily violence. And stories that explicitly assessed the direction of the war have tended toward pessimism, according to a new study of press coverage of events on the ground in Iraq from January through October of 2007.

In what Defense Department statistics show to be the deadliest year so far for U.S. forces in Iraq, journalists have responded to the challenge of covering the continuing violence by keeping many of the accounts of these attacks brief and limiting the interpretation they contain.

As the year went on, the narrative from Iraq brightened in some ways. The drumbeat of reports about daily attacks declined in late summer and fall, and with that came a decline in the amount of coverage from Iraq overall.

This shift in coverage beginning in June, in turn, coincided with a rising sense among the American public that military efforts in Iraq were going "very" or "fairly well."

Amy Proctor cites a Pew research poll that charts how Americans have had a sense of improvement on Iraq. Although this seems to contradict a recent Gallup poll that states "Americans are generally negative on the status of the war right now", and that 6 in 10 Americans still want a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the survey also reveals that 71% of Americans believe Iraq will be better off as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and overthrow of Saddam's regime.

35% of Americans say the troops should stay until the job is done or until the United States wins, while 29% say the troops should be removed immediately. Eleven percent say the troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible, and 5% endorse a gradual withdrawal. About one in six Americans advise a specific time period -- 11% within the next year, 4% between one and two years, and 1% three years or longer.

Republicans and Democrats differ significantly in what they would advise the president and Congress to do about U.S. troops in Iraq: the vast majority of Republicans say the troops should stay until the job is done or until the United States wins, while Democrats most frequently say the troops should be removed immediately.

Amy Proctor also makes the following observation:

Essentially, as public opinion of the war shifted from a negative opinion to a more positive one by September 2007, the overall media coverage declined along with terrorist attacks.

You would expect the opposite to happen. That is, with a safer environment, more embedded reporters would be able to travel with the troops and more reporting made available to the public, whereas a volatile environment would accomodate fewer embedded journalists resulting in fewer stories. In reality, the opposite occurred.

Recall, from Michael Totten's Anbar Awakening Part II:

Violence has declined so sharply in Ramadi that few journalists bother to visit these days. It’s “boring,” most say, and it’s hard to get a story out there – especially for daily news reporters who need fresh scoops every day. Unlike most journalists, I am not a slave to the daily news grind and took the time to embed with the Army and Marines in late summer.

There is no good excuse for the way in which the media has reported, misreported, and misrepresented the story on Iraq. They, as much as the news itself, have shaped the war (and public opinion and perceptions of it) and become active participants in the course of events.

As I noted, I've put up a couple of pretty good entries of this variety (see here, here, and here), but Wordsmith's post here is a real beauty!

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UPDATE: Don't miss this end-of-the-year posting extravaganza: Juan Cole's "Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007," which is lauded by Andrew Sullivan, who in turn is eviscerated by Karl over at Protein Wisdom.

Mike Huckabee and American Foreign Policy

I noted in an earlier post the increased media attention to foreign policy among the GOP presidential hopefuls. At lot of the focus is on Mike Huckabee, especially his essay in the January/February edition of Foreign Affairs.

Huckabee applies his famous "homespun" spin to international relations, although this approach might not work so well in the analysis of world politics. Here's the introduction:

The United States, as the world's only superpower, is less vulnerable to military defeat. But it is more vulnerable to the animosity of other countries. Much like a top high school student, if it is modest about its abilities and achievements, if it is generous in helping others, it is loved. But if it attempts to dominate others, it is despised.

American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would endanger both our national security and our economic interests.

A more successful U.S. foreign policy needs to better explain Islamic jihadism to the American people. Given how Americans have thrived on diversity -- religious, ethnic, racial -- it takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what Islamic terrorists are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it. If they are willing to kill their own children by letting them detonate suicide bombs, then they will also be willing to kill our children for their misguided cause. The Bush administration has never adequately explained the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism or convinced us of its ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is "know your enemy," and most Americans do not know theirs. To grasp the magnitude of the threat, we first have to understand what makes Islamic terrorists tick. Very few Americans are familiar with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, or the Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad influenced Osama bin Laden and the rise of al Qaeda. Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him and sought to restore the "pure" Islam of the seventh century through a theocratic caliphate without national borders. He saw nothing decadent or sinful in murdering in order to achieve that end. America's culture of life stands in stark contrast to the jihadists' culture of death.

The United States' biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the lack of a viable moderate alternative to radicalism. On the one hand, there are radical Islamists willing to fight dictators with terrorist tactics that moderates are too humane to use. On the other, there are repressive regimes that stay in power by force and through the suppression of basic human rights -- many of which we support by buying oil, such as the Saudi government, or with foreign aid, such as the Egyptian government, our second-largest recipient of aid.

Although we cannot export democracy as if it were Coca-Cola or KFC, we can nurture moderate forces in places where al Qaeda is seeking to replace modern evil with medieval evil. Such moderation may not look or function like our system -- it may be a benevolent oligarchy or more tribal than individualistic -- but both for us and for the peoples of those countries, it will be better than the dictatorships they have now or the theocracy they would have under radical Islamists. The potential for such moderation to emerge is visible in the way that Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq have turned against al Qaeda to work with us; they could not stand the thought of living under such fundamentalism and brutality. The people of Afghanistan turned against the Taliban for the same reason. To know these extremists is not to love them.

As president, my goal in the Arab and Muslim worlds will be to calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy. It is self-defeating to attempt too much too soon: doing so could mean holding elections that the extremists would win. But it is also self-defeating to do nothing. We must first destroy existing terrorist groups and then attack the underlying conditions that breed them: the lack of basic sanitation, health care, education, jobs, a free press, fair courts -- which all translates into a lack of opportunity and hope. The United States' strategic interests as the world's most powerful country coincide with its moral obligations as the richest. If we do not do the right thing to improve life in the Muslim world, the terrorists will step in and do the wrong thing.

This is the first time I've heard the United States - the world's hegemonic power - compared to a "top high school student." Yet, while Huckabee's off-beat (even over-the-top) and strident his criticism of the administration, I thought his piece hit the right tone overall.

That said, let me share some other views on Huckabee's foreign policy. Here's Daniel Drezner on Huckabee and the "bunker mentality" declaration:

Really, you just have to stand back and marvel at the contradiction of sentiments contained in that paragraph. It's endemic to the entire essay -- for someone who claims he wants to get rid of the bunker mentality, Huckabee offers no concrete ideas for how to do that, and a lot of policies (rejecting the Law of the Sea Treaty, using force in Pakistan, boosting defense spending by 50%) that will ensure anti-Americanism for years to come.

Drezner also hammers Huckabee on his call for a diplomatic opening to Iran.

But see also James Joyner's critique over at Outside the Beltway, "Huckabee’s Sunday School Foreign Policy." Here's Joyner's response to the "top high school student" line, and how the U.S. needs more humility and generousity:

Apparently, Huckabee hasn’t read Machiavelli. While these platitudes sound nice and are befitting a Baptist preacher, they’re almost certainly wrong. Not so much that we ought to be modest and generous, which are worthwhile attributes for their own sake, but that the world’s only superpower is ever going to be loved. The world just doesn’t work that way.

Joyner's perhaps too eager to belittle Huckabee's statements, for example, in his attack on Huckabee's criticism of the Bush adminsration's inadequacy in explaining the terror threat:

Gee whiz, they’ve been doing this for more than six years now. Does Huckabee really think that Americans need to be convinced that the terrorists want to kill us?

That's a simple characterization of Huckabee's statements. I see Huckabee calling for better public relations overall - that is, not just hyping the terror threat, but a more clear and consistent effort at public relations in marketing our mission (see Melvin Laird on this point in relation to Iraq).

Joyner's also critical of Huckabee's call to increase the Pentagon budget, for example, where Huckabee notes defense spending - at 3.9 percent of GDP - is too low:

We already spend more than all the nations on the planet, combined, on national defense and we need to up it by a third? Or, actually, much more sense current military functions will be pawned off to other agencies?

I think Huckabee's right about this. If the U.S. hopes to continue with a robust defense of our interests overseas, we need to consider more public sacrifice, not less.

I would agree though - as both Drezner and Joyner stress - that Huckabee comes off soft at times, with his proposals sounding more like Democratic Party talking points than a vigorous GOP foreign policy. Still, Huckabee probably deserves more respect than ridicule (Joyner takes some cheap shots on otherwise reasonable points - for example, on how Huckabee would defer to commanders on the ground in Iraq).

Huckabee's foreign policy is far from my first pick - especially with regard to Iran - but his commitment to continuing the mission in Iraq is in line the preferences of the Republican voting majority.

See also my earlier posts on Foreign Affairs' "Campaign 2008" series, in order of publication: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain.

Will Last Minute Shoppers Help the Economy?

Will last minute holiday spending help the economy avoid a recession next year? This New York Times story is pessimistic:

American consumers, uneasy about the economy and unimpressed by the merchandise in stores, delivered the bleak holiday shopping season retailers had expected, if not feared, according to one early but influential projection.

Spending from Thanksgiving to Christmas rose just 3.6 percent over last year, the weakest performance in at least four years, according to MasterCard Advisors, a division of the credit card company. By comparison, sales grew 6.6 percent in 2006 and 8.7 percent in 2005.

“There was not a recipe for a pickup in sales growth,” said Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis at MasterCard Advisors, citing higher gas prices, a slowing housing market and a tight credit market.

Strong demand at the start of the season for a handful of must-have electronics, like digital frames and portable G.P.S. navigation systems, trailed off in December. And robust sales of luxury products could not make up for sluggish sales of jewelry and women’s clothing.

What did eventually sell was generally marked down — once, if not twice — which could hurt retailers’ profits in the final three months of year. “Stores are buying those sales at a cost,” said Sherif Mityas, a partner at the consulting firm A. T. Kearney, who specializes in retailing.

Here's more of an upbeat take, from the Los Angeles Times:

A last minute surge of holiday shoppers helped blunt what was looking like a dismal Christmas for retailers.

Sales from the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before Christmas were up 18.7% over the same period last year, according to a report from ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which monitors more than 45,000 retail stores. Sales for the week ended Saturday were up 33% over the previous week.

"Last-minute shoppers swamped stores over the weekend, allowing retailers to breathe a sigh of relief," said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak. Martin said the busy shopping weekend helped put sales on track with his firm's forecast of a 3.6% sales gain for the holiday season over the previous year.

Those last-minute shoppers included John Shin, a 29-year-old graphic designer who was rushing around the Grove shopping mall in the Fairfax district. With Christmas Eve fast approaching, Shin needed a present for his girlfriend.

He waited until the last minute because "they didn't have sales on the things I wanted to buy," he said.

Representatives from popular retail hubs such as the Beverly Center and Westfield Century City and mall owner Santa Monica-based Macerich Co. said they had seen an increase in traffic over the weekend as shoppers who had procrastinated finally hit the stores.

That's been the case for retailers across the country, especially those selling electronics.

"It has been very busy with lots of last-minute shoppers," said Kirsten Whipple, a spokeswoman for Sears Holding Corp. "We've had very good traffic, especially today."

Some Macerich centers reported more traffic than they did on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year, said Phil Vise, vice president of consumer marketing for Macerich Southern California.

"It certainly has been a season of procrastination," he said. "It's really come down to the last few days."

Still, some believe all those shoppers hitting the malls this last weekend might not be enough to boost sales by any significant amount.

The International Council of Shopping Centers predicts only a 2.5% gain in holiday season sales at stores open at least a year, and Brit Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, forecast last week that same-store sales would rise only 1.8% over the previous year. That's his lowest forecast in a decade.

Target Corp. said Monday that same-store sales for December might fall as much as 1% from a year ago. The Minneapolis-based company had previously predicted sales would rise 3% to 5%.

Actually, the figures for Target are being viewed as a larger bellwhether of the 2007 shopping season:

It was supposed to be a Target Christmas.

Buffeted by high energy costs and a slowing housing market, consumers were expected to trade down from midpriced department stores, like Macy’s and Nordstrom, to discount retailers with designer cachet — Target’s undisputed terrain.

But instead of dominating this holiday season, Target is muddling through it, perplexing rival merchants and Wall Street analysts, who consider the chain a bellwether and are scrutinizing its performance for clues on the health of the economy.

In two of the last three months — September and November — Target’s sales growth has slipped below 1.5 percent, well under its historical average and lower than its biggest rival, Wal-Mart Stores.

The chief executive of Target, Robert J. Ulrich, has warned that the company may not meet its earnings forecast for the final three months of the year, on the heels of a third-quarter performance that he described as “disappointing.”

Behind the slowdown, analysts suspect, is a pullback on routine purchases of housewares and clothing, Target’s traditional strengths — and, in general, the most profitable merchandise in its stores.

In flusher times, Americans snapped up Target’s $40 taffeta dresses designed by Isaac Mizrahi and $9.99 plush towels from Thomas O’Brien. But with shoppers anxious about the economy, they appear to be skipping the splurges.

Linda Shannon, 56, a retired nurse in North Bergen, N.J., adores Target’s sheets and towels, but she walked right by them last week at her local store. “In this economy, what we have at home is good enough,” she said.

Target is by no means losing money; it remains one of the most profitable chains in the country. But in retailing, analysts and investors are hungry not just for profits, but for growth. They tend to gauge success by monthly sales increases at stores open at least a year. And by that yardstick, Target is lagging.

For the first time in years, in fact, the chain that devotees refer to as Tar-zhay, because of its fashion flare, looks vulnerable. In November, sales at Target stores open a year rose 1.1 percent, when adjusted for a quirk in this year’s calendar. The company will provide a glimpse into sales so far this December in a conference call Monday.

Lazard Capital Markets predicts that Target’s average monthly sales growth for 2007 will be the lowest in four years. And that is raising broader questions about the American consumer: If the store that America’s middle class loves to love is experiencing turbulence, analysts say, it bodes poorly for all retailers.

There is some dispute about exactly what ails Target. Many analysts said consumers are cutting back on optional products, like a new bath mat, and spending their money on essentials, like cleaning supplies, which are less profitable for stores.

Adrianne Shapira, a retail analyst at Goldman Sachs, said that “in the past, what Target has done so well is capitalize on discretionary spending. Shoppers walked around the store and tossed a few things they did not need into the basket.” Now, she said, “that is falling by the wayside.”

Rosa Setkiewicz, 50, stopped at the Target in Jersey City, N.J., recently to stock up on Arm & Hammer baking soda, Clorox bleach and Downy laundry detergent — “things that are cheap,” she said as she loaded the trunk of her Toyota Corolla. “I have cut back a lot on clothing and things that are not necessary.”

Bill Dreher, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, dubbed this phenomenon “trading down within the store.”

Target executives acknowledge there is some truth to the theory. But the bigger issue, in their view, is that the number of customers walking into Target’s stores has dropped. They see that as a sign not of any tactical failure on Target’s part, but of rising doubts among consumers about the economy.

Such rising doubts can have significant political implications. According to the notion of "pocketbook voting," economic conditions are the single best predictor of a president's job approval, and while President Bush is not on the ballot in 2008, his administration's economic legacy might be a significant factor determining the election-year results .

As Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Mary Stegmaier note in the abstract to their article, "Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes" :

Economic conditions shape election outcomes in the world's democracies. Good times keep parties in office, bad times cast them out. This proposition is robust, as the voluminous body of research reviewed here demonstrates. The strong findings at the macro level are founded on the economic voter, who holds the government responsible for economic performance, rewarding or punishing it at the ballot box. Although voters do not look exclusively at economic issues, they generally weigh those more heavily than any others, regardless of the democracy they vote in.

I'll be keeping my eye on economic developments in upcoming months.

The Democrats already have the edge in public opinion polls heading into 2008; and as I've noted before, economic concerns are becoming more important to voters.

Don't Forget the Love at Christmas

I sent out Christmas wishes to dozens of bloggers yesterday, and visitors may have noticed the nice response in the comment thread to my entry for Christmas 2007.

Let me follow up now with some additional words on Christmas, and especially on the deeper meaning of the holiday, from this editorial at the Charlotte Observer:

Christmas season moves at a frenetic pace, and most of us move with it, dashing from chore to chore, place to place, event to event. The obsession to do it all is driven in part by the urge to make the most out of a joyful time that only comes once a year. Every moment must be the best, every gift letter-perfect and every get-together a lasting memory.

That's why many of us will go about our Christmas Eve today at a pace more suitable for winning the pole at a NASCAR race than savoring satisfying moments. Boxes must be wrapped, last-minute do-dads secured, gift sacks stuffed ... along with a thousand other trivial things we won't remember after the season is gone. By the time Rudolph and Santa take flight and the voices of church choirs warm the night, many of us will blink and say "What happened? Did we miss it?"

Yet it doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps we're old-fashioned, but it's up to each of us to decide what's most important, and pursue it, throughout what's left of this season.

How? Lasting memories require a willingness to set aside some time for people and things that are special, and won't go away when the glow of Christmas fades.

Forget about gift-wrapping. It'll keep. Instead, spend a couple of hours destroying the kitchen baking cookies with the kids.

Ditch the cleaning. That'll keep, too. Sit down, put on your favorite carols, turn on the gas logs and sing. The dog may howl, but you'll be more the merrier for it.

Finally, nix the search for last-minute trinkets. Make a pot of hot chocolate, call a friend and walk the neighborhood at dusk, watching the Christmas lights blink on.

There, feel better? We thought so.

Now you're ready for the next level.

Beneath the commercial prodding, the deep-seated urge to seek the perfect Christmas, there's really a very simple holiday.

It doesn't matter what you believe, Christmas is about the gift of love. A God who loved the world enough to send his only son. A man -- that son -- who loved perfect strangers so much he gave his life to pay for their sinful deeds.

Christians or otherwise, many of us can relate. There's likely somebody and some ideal that precious to most of us this season. If we're lucky, we can give the person a squeeze, and vow to uphold the ideal throughout the coming year.

The point is this: There's only so much time in normal lives at Christmas to pursue the perfect remembrance, mingle at parties and shop. But that's not what the season really is about. If we do too much, we'll miss the gift of love. All we'll have is an ache to do something different.

Think about that today before things get too busy.

I hope everyone had a peaceful and loving Christmas holiday.

Christmas 2007

Here's to wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

May your holiday season be the finest ever, and best wishes for a great '08!

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UPDATE: I'm adding another YouTube for a bit more Christmas spirit, via Liberty Pundit:

I hope everyone's having a wonderful Christmas Day.

My wife's gone back down for a nap. We were up at 3:30am to meet Santa by the tree (arranging gifts). My youngest boy, who's 6, didn't fall asleep until close to midnight!

But what joy upon awakening! We opened our presents and had some cinnamon rolls (and I'm having a little snifter right now!). I received books, movies, and music, and my wife and kids loved their gifts (a laptop and Wii, among many other things).

More on Christmas giving tomorrow with some updated holiday posting. Until then!

And don't forget to honor Christ today in our bounty of joy. If you're not celebrating Christmas today, Ann Althouse welcomes you to share your experience on her page.

And to all a good night!