A billion dollars later, as the Carey Brothers put it, Mitt Romney is now a trivia question. Is there closure? No, because the Romney brand is only distinguished by its lack of distinction. Measured against fellow also-rans, Romney had neither the personality of John McCain nor the principles of George McGovern. By flipping back to the deranged Tea Party fringe, then flopping forward to the centre around debate time, he couldn’t even muster Barry Goldwater’s fundamentalist vibe. Even in loss, his campaign provides us no lesson.
At no point was the election in a dead heat: the challenger trailed in all eight battleground states for the better part of the spring. The other running theme wherein the two candidates presented ‘a clear choice’ only held true at home. Romney’s social conservatism belonged to 1953 and his plans to run the economy like a chief executive were at clear odds with President Obama’s dime store populism kicking around millionaires and billionaires at every stump speech. The entire election smelt of mediocrity. If one remembers how the presidents Bush clawed their way into the White House — with George HW implying his opponent freed rapists from jail and George W’s polling team ringing up undecided voters to inform them his GOP rival had fathered a black child — Obama vs Romney seems far from political history’s most negative electoral campaign. It was certainly the most expensive but such records are made to be broken by the next round — which brings us to why either outcome was awful for Pakistan.
It was uniquely upsetting to see us, among 21 happier countries polled by the BBC, be the lone voice in support of Romney. This meant that our depth of disillusionment has grown far and wide and completely out of step with other countries. But the onus, for once, isn’t on us. Four years ago, a mixed-race child born to a single mother struggled to find both purpose and identity. “Caught without a class, a tradition or a structure,” he wrote in college about “having large dollops of envy” for Pakistani friends gravitating towards the business world. Even when nominated to be president of the US, he refused to make his ethnicity into a campaign jingle. In 2008, inspiration was bursting at the seams of the Barack Obama message and people could feel it.
Four years later, ‘national interest’ trumped the meaning of life or familiarity with Pakistani college-going types. The former constitutional law professor handpicks a kill list (apparently, every Tuesday) and deemed offenders are picked off by drone missiles. Complaining that drone strikes drove American policy in Pakistan, the recently-departed US ambassador, Cameron Munter, even whined that he “didn’t realise his main job was to kill people”. After 176 dead children, it’s good to see the ambassador having learnt something from his 25 years of high diplomacy.
Osama bin Laden’s death is heralded as the presidency’s key achievement. Meanwhile, a foreign contractor shot dead two citizens in Lahore and a third was run over by his convoy. Gunships roamed a mile into Pakistani territory and killed 24 of our soldiers. We closed Nato’s supply routes to Afghanistan before reopening them like confused teenagers. Just now, calls to hunt down anti-Pakistan militants over the border in Afghanistan have been rebuffed. Really? After all that Haqqani rhetoric?
And so, Pakistan has begun looking to make once-sacrilegious friends, to disappearing Russians, cagey Indians, even most hopefully, Bangladesh. The road to reassessment is hard but no one cares for the alternative. Morning has come in President Obama’s America, one far more miserable than the one Ronald Reagan declared 18 years ago. And we need to look away the same way he did.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 15th, 2012.
COMMENTS (24)
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@Mirza: Very true Mirzaji - not to mention saving GM and CHrysler and saving millions of homes from foreclosure with the Home affordable mortgage program.
@Warden Mulligan: "Now where does that leave Pakistan? Why are countries either afraid of it or noncommittal toward it?"
Who is afraid? Please name one country. The correct word would have been wary - wariness that stems from lack of trust.
"Morning has come in President Obama’s America, one far more miserable than the one Ronald Reagan declared 18 years ago. And we need to look away the same way he did."
A new dawn has set in President Obama's America and it does not bode well for autocracies, kleptocracies, oligarchies and states that sponsor terrorism.
Pakistanis are nostalgic for the Cold War era Carte Blanche bestowed on Pakistan by Ronald Reagan, the man responsible for the mess Pakistan is in and yet we have a would be lawyer that lauds him. Go figure. Pakistan cannot afford to look the other way, lest it forsakes the $7.5 billion in aid.
I won't delve into this writer's disdain for Obama because that is another can of worms but he clearly lacks basic knowledge of Obama's personal and professional accomplishments.
You write "Osama bin Laden’s death is heralded as the presidency’s key achievement." You have no clue at all. You forget about Universal Healthcare which Clinton could not do in his 8 years? This single achievement brings Obama in the league of Roosevelt. Forget about ending a war in Iraq and giving legal status to kids of illegal aliens, etc. This Op Ed is a whole lot of nothing without any meaning. These are five minutes of my life that I am not going to get back.
Morning in America, Dusk in Pakistan
This article lacks any substance. It is nothing but a piece displaying delusive and askew mindset.
something tells me you should brace yourselves for the next four years too
@blackjack Yes, Pakistan is truly an awful brand and everyone hates us. By commenting that it stands for all that is bad on the Internet, everything will change.
He'll fit right in with today's brand of lawyer in Pakistan.
@BlackJack I actually feel the same way on what brand Pakistan stands for in rest of the world at the moment (minus the jubilation offcourse).
Excellent article, always a pleasure seeing Asad Rahim's floating head in the Op-Ed section.
But if America is a brand in decline, Pakistan is a brand in flux. I disagree - I think Pakistan has a fairly well-established brand now; everyone agrees on what it stands for.
excellent!! much of the op-ed space here is reserved for people that blur the argument, never ever giving pakistan's viewpoint. good job.