Did Gerald Ford's gaffe cost him the
1976 election
During a critical debate with Jimmy Carter a month before the
presidential election, President Gerald R. Ford declared in response to
a question from the New York Times' Max Frankel, "There is no
Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe." While the statement may have
been prophetic, given the events of a decade later, it was absurd at the
time.
The press pounced on this passage of the debate and wrote of little
else for days afterward, so much so that a public initially convinced
that Ford had won the debate soon turned overwhelmingly against him.
Jimmy Carter won the presidency.
Hillary Clinton made very similar gaffes when it was apparent she
knew very little about Pakistan, called by some "the most dangerous
place on earth" because it is a powerful, nuclear-armed nation in
danger of falling to al Qaeda and Muslim extremists.
Clinton does not under
Pakistani elections
Thomas
Houlahan, the director of the Military Assessment Program at the
Center for Security and Science, expands on a theme we discussed the
other day:
Sen. Hillary Clinton was telling Wolf Blitzer that she
didn’t think “the Pakistani government at this time under President
Musharraf has any credibility at all.” She then said something that
betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own
credibility on the subject into serious question. “If President
Musharraf wishes to stand for election,” she told Blitzer, “then he
should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to
follow.” My immediate reaction was: “Did I hear that correctly?”
As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn’t
wish to stand for election any time soon…
Sen. Clinton really didn’t know that the upcoming
elections were for individual seats in Pakistan’s parliament. She
actually believed that Bhutto, Nawaz and Musharraf would be facing off
as individual candidates for leadership of the country in the upcoming
elections. Sen. Clinton didn’t know that Nawaz Sharif isn’t allowed
to run for office in Pakistan because of a felony conviction. She
didn’t know that President Musharraf won’t be on the ballot because
he’s already been elected. Sen. Clinton, a candidate for the
leadership of the free world, apparently doesn’t know the first thing
about the country referred to by some as “the most dangerous place on
earth.”
I concede her sturdy mind, deep
sophistication, and seriousness of intent. I see her as a triangulator
like her husband, not a radical but a maneuverer in the direction of a
vague, half-forgotten but always remembered, leftism. It is also true that
she has a command-and-control mentality, an urgent, insistent and grating
sense of destiny, and she appears to believe that any act that benefits
Clintons is a virtuous act, because Clintons are good and deserve to be
benefited.
…My central problem is that the next American president
will very likely face another big bad thing, a terrible day, or days, and
in that time it will be crucial–crucial–that our nation be led by a
man or woman who can be, at least for the moment and at least in general,
trusted. Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most
instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include
Nixon. Would she be able to speak the nation through the trauma? I do not
think so. And if I am right, that simple fact would do as much damage to
America as the terrible thing itself.
