Letters to the Editor
bystander
Published Letters: 1240
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Ondolette - one more
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I found this at the Huffington Post by Harry Shearer
Bhutto: Is the War of Fog Beginning?
Barely twenty-four hours after her assassination, Benazir Bhutto, whose corporeal remains were buried in Rawalpindi, may have had her less tangible remains inserted firmly into Karachi's spin machine. Today we're told by the Pakistani government's Interior Minister that Ms. Bhutto was not hit by any of the gunshots fired at her, but rather, the fatal blow was oddly self-administered, as she hit her head on part of the car frame as the vehicle attempted to speed away from the attack.
Interesting, except for one detail left oddly unexplained by the new scenario: dozens of accounts from yesterday quoted witnesses, as in this example from Australia:
Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness.
You don't need to be a CSI viewer to know that those two accounts don't mesh very well. An AP report quotes the surgeon who treated her as saying she died of "a shrapnel wound and was not shot." Shrapnel would suggest an artifact of the bomb, and would also put the "blood poured" account into doubt. How to untangle all this? An autopsy. Uh-oh. Also in the AP report:
Soomro, the prime minister, told the Cabinet on Friday that Bhutto's husband did not allow an autopsy, according to a government statement.
Well, that's that, then.
There are some embedded links in this piece as well.
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ondelette
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gah! I'm sorry, ondelette. Jeeze, you'd think by now..., wouldn't you?
Somewhere, earlier today, I caught wind that the story was beginning to shift. I fully expect our press will haul out the in dispute tag. Nothing like good old he said, she said reporting to keep them from having to actually work at a story.
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report from Rawalpindi General Hospital
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, I'll start digging. Have you considered putting up a request for same at Lahore metroblog in the comments ... or, some of the other blogs? Maybe/likely you've already thought of that.
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Ondelette
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm coming up empty on that hospital report. I can find news pieces that include the language you said would be in the report, but not the report itself. I was kind of hoping that if I got the search string right I might find something where a link to the report had been embedded and Google's cache might have preserved it. Nice theory.
It's clear the revision is occurring in all the major outlets. First it was bullets, then it was shrapnel, and now it's skull fracture from a blow to the head when she ducked. (I like to imagine myself able to duck a bullet.) No one seems willing to say her head was fully intact, it's just they apparently don't want the cause of cranial asymmetry to be a bullet, or bullets. I found a nice timeline for the revision process (at sig), but I cannot find the report itself.
You have to know someone out there in cyberland captured it. Someone always does. And, according to Milgram there ought to be 6 or fewer people between you and that report. If the right person knows you're looking...
I suppose it does look a little worse for the security details that were supposed to have been screening if someone could get in there with a gun or rifle. (FWIW, the first reports I read indicated rifle.) But, I'm having as hard a time with this revision as you are. Seems like there's a fair amount of evidence (eye witness and film footage) to argue against a bump on the head someone might incur from ducking.
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simple answers to simple questions
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why doesn't Andrew Sullivan allow comments on his blog?
Exhibit A:
Ossifer Mancuso
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Wabanatta_3
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You could be close. I thought the screen name looked familiar.
A Confederacy of Dunces
From Wiki:
Angelo Mancuso is an inept police officer, the nephew of Santa Battaglia. The sergeant in charge is angry with him, and he must somehow make a major bust to avoid being kicked off the force, being reduced to wear ridiculous disguises, and spending time in the bus station toilets in order to arrest "suspicious characters"
Didn't we do rounds on this book title awhile back?
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Ondelette
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Last one I promise. Someone in the comments at Teeth Maestro's blog put up this You Tube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyMNJ6d9ZBQ
Govt video showing killer firing three times to assassinate benazir bhutto, leader of ppp, pakistan. Pakistan won't be same without her. Now it is turn for Sanam Bhutto. Video taken from CNN
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ondelette re: In case you missed it last time
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's precisely what I was thinking when I wrote this:
The 60-cent question
[Read the article: Favorite quotes of 2007]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]
How destabilized does Pakistan have to get before Cheney decides the US has a 'solution?'
Permalink Thursday, December 27, 2007 11:05 AM
I fear the need to revise Bhutto's assassination will make perfect sense shortly.
Onward to PakiIran.
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RMP
[Read the article: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Any number of folks can call for an investigation at this point, but what would they use for evidence? The crime scene was scrubbed by fire hoses shortly after the bodies were carried away. Bhutto's examining physicians are clamming up and shifting their stories. Bhutto's husband, reportedly, claimed he did not want Bhutto autopsied - even though, apparently, Pakistan has a law that would have required one. Bhutto is now buried.
What's left are some eye witness accounts, and maybe some errant documentation (film, cell phone pictures), which might (or, might not) be easily refuted, in the hands of some unknown individuals, who might (or, might not) be easily intimidated if the government didn't want them to do show-and-tell.
I suspect it's politically expedient to call for an investigation, it will be politically expedient to give the appearance of an investigation, but this occurred in Pakistan, and you see how well investigations into government corruption are proceeding here.