Benazir Bhutto: "one of the most slandered politicians of modern time"

Today's not my day to post at BN-Politics, but I wanted to comment both there and here on an exchange I've been having with Charles at Mercury Rising, so will cross-post there tomorrow.   This is just an unsystematic first reaction to what I've learned from Charles, who has called her

I've really been surprised and  distressed by the negativity flowing around Benazir Bhutto.  Normally it takes a few months for the media to "discover" a generally (or so I'd have thought) admired political figure's feet of clay.  What's going on here?

In commenting on the blogger round-up I published at BN-Politics on the Bhutto assassination, Charles pointed to this article, and remarked:

In the report of her death, this is the language they used:

the dance of veils she has deftly performed … stirred as much distrust as hope …her persona as a female Muslim leader….controversy… polarizing figure …turbulent tenures… acted imperiously and impulsively…. deep questions about her personal probity…big ambition…showed how she could aggrandize….flourishes led questioning in Pakistan about the strength of her democratic ideals in practice…distrust…back-room deal-making …believes she is the chosen one…dished out favors to constituents and colleagues…ruled the party with an iron hand, jealously guarding her position … marriage to Asif Ali Zardari was arranged by her mother…accusations that the couple had illegally taken $1.5 billion

Let’s see: snotty, wildly sexist, religiously insensitive, and a personal smear, all while the body is cooling.

The correct translation is that she was a powerful woman in a country which doesn’t accept women, she was a politician with all of a politician’s narcissism, she was relentlessly smeared but nothing was ever proven, and she understood loyalty up, loyalty down.  (Charles)

I remarked in my own piece on the unexpectedly cautic tone of the "obituary" in The Telegraph.

Charles has written an excellent piece on Bhutto called "Who Was Benazir Bhutto?"  In addition to writing what I consider to be a beautiful and appropriate obituary, he remarks: 

 I think Bhutto was one of the most slandered politicians of modern time, a screen on whom this world projected its own misogyny and racial contempt. But who Bhutto really was is now a matter for historians.

More on Charles' piece tomorrow at my official political blog....

Comments

[whig]

Or it could be that she said Osama bin Laden was murdered, as I said at Mercury Rising. Not why she was killed, certainly, but if she said something like that I could see her being reviled for it without the context being mentioned.