A Day Two Dictators Would Die

In our wide-ranging coverage here at Interweb Detritus, the Pakistani political scene ranks almost as highly as bile David Brooks has to spew and references to 80's sitcoms; so, in the spirit of completeness, today--the day that Fidel Castro resigned from a post he didn't even occupy (because a guy whose stock and trade is drawing ejaculate on the faces of Hollywood teenagers reported him dead months ago)--I join the fray and write the political obituary of another dictator, Pervez Musharraf.

I don't have a lot of insight to offer: his cabal of yes-men took a severe blow in yesterday's election, and it looks as though Benazir's PPP will now come to some sort of understanding with the Muslim League and its once-bald/now-resplendent mascot, Nawaz Sharif. A new coalition government will form, and if it can cobble together the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the old Generalissimo, it'll toss him out (provided of course that he pig-headedly resists his political fortunes and sticks around for the ass-beating).

I could speculate what the future holds for a country that has seized onto-- Obamaniacally you could say--"change" as its watchword, only to hale back into office the two previous ruling parties (as some sort of Voltron-esque collaboration): one party, a craven cult of personality, whose fallen leader gave the Taliban succour, and the other, a divisive, provincial (in both senses of the word) joke, whose moronic leader entered a nuclear arms race and garnered Pakistan the title of "world's most dangerous country." I could speculate, but with today's news that the United States has already carried out at least one clandestine, unilateral strike on Pakistan, even I am not willing to follow my dark, cynical heart farther into the abyss.

Benazir, Epilogue

Of all the reasons that Pakistan is a bizarre place--described here and elsewhere--one of particular note is this: the most preposterous explanations offered by the country's standard-bearers in response to high-profile deaths of public figures (e.g., fuck you, cricket coach Bob Woolmer was not murdered, and, fuck you, Benazir Bhutto was not felled by an assassin's bullets) somehow manage to be vindicated in the end: Woolmer indeed died of natural causes, and Bhutto died, having knocked her head against the top of a sunroof. I yukked it up when these two theories were first offered, so I eat crow again tonight.

Happy Armageddon!

Hey, I need to blog again. I know. Parents were in town Christmasweek, and then 'Pockets and I flew back east for a wedding in Pittsburgh/to see if my new niece/nephew had arrived on the scene, but that's no excuse: Benazir was assassinated/bumped her head; Pakistan devolved into a riotous and blood-spattered free-for-all (which led to the destruction of, among other things, my aunt's car...while she was driving it); The Wire season premiere dropped On Demand; Mike Huckabee became the would-be-nominee for a bit, then started to talk about things not related to our Lord and Savior/love handles; Giuliani became irrelevant; and Will Smith secretly converted to Scientology (which makes him still more electable than Romney). Also, Happy New Year! Here's to hoping that nuclear holocaust/impending Chinese colonization/bird flu/Britney-LiLo-Winehouse's inevitable group overdose and-or suicide pact decides to put off plans till '09 at least.