Condi and the action that was taken (updated)

Condi speaks to the press again. It’s kind of fun just for the awkward verbal contortions.

For example, she hasn’t decided exactly what to call that thing Musharraf did – coup? martial law? – so she does as generic as she can, “the action that was taken”: “we don’t support the action that was taken because it was extra-constitutional”. Literally: Musharraf issued an entirely new constitution, an “extra” constitution if you will, and then fired the seven Supreme Court justices who refused to ratify it.

She repeatedly refers to a “democratic path” or a “constitutional path,” which is a way of suggesting that something democratic has been occurring in Pakistan while ignoring the absence of any actual, you know, democracy, and of obscuring the fact that any political processes, far from being democratic, have been entirely the result of the will of Pakistan’s military ruler. She is wistful about her illusions: “Because if you get back on a constitutional path, then you can imagine the continued process towards elections, and so, that’s what we’ve been concentrating on.” All she wants is just to be able to imagine continued progress towards phantasmagorical elections.

But of course none of this will affect American support of the Musharraf regime because of our alliterative “continuing counterterrorism concerns.” Indeed, she can’t picture anyone in the US not likewise prioritizing those c.c.c.’s over democracy or the human rights of Pakistanis: “But I would be very surprised if anyone wants the President to ignore or set aside our concerns about terrorism and protecting the American people.”

Here is the key cowardly quote (if I too may alliterate), in which Condi cannot bring herself to criticize Mush personally for his actions:

Q: Are you disappointed in him?

RICE: I’m disappointed at this decision, sure.

(Update: just to show her language was not casually chosen, she repeated it in a Fox interview:

Q: Do we still support President Musharraf?

RICE: Well, clearly, we don’t support the actions he has taken. ...


Q: But you can’t say whether we still support Musharraf at this point?

RICE: Well, I don’t want to personalize this. This is about an action that has been taken. And the action is not supportable.

Not personalize this? Isn’t a coup by a military ruler just a little bit, you know, personal?)