Pakorakorner

I happened to watch live the back to back one on one sessions of the two Presidential candidates with Rev Rick Warren at the Saddleback Church, CA. Senator Obama took questions for an hour followed by Senator McCain. The format was interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, the questions were quite different from those asked by conventional TV channels. There were hardly any follow on questions (which has its positives and negatives). On the flip side, the ...

Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif have finally decided to temporarily bury the hatchet and go after their common enemy, President Musharraf. After few attempts on his life and playing a cat and mouse game with the terrorists (for several years) while simultaneously keep the democratic process at bay, Pakistan's magic man Musharraf enters a new seemingly challenging phase in his political life. This time like many other times in the past seems like the end of the ...

Check out this new ad for Obama from MoveOn.org

A closer look at present-day Pakistani politics will reveal a strange, ironic similarity to a run-of-the -mill Bollywood flick. Former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, reluctantly supports the ruling party mostly to keep his old nemesis, President Musharraf at bay. Ideally, he would like to be in charge and have his revenge on President Musharraf. While in power, he claims to have been betrayed by then General Musharraf and forced into exile. Now he is back to his motherland, thanks to ...

Ok, here comes yet another book from someone closely involved with the White House. With this book former Bush White House press scretary Scott McClellan joins the ranks of George Tenet, David Kuo, Richard Clarke and others. It is hard to take such folks too seriously because you never know what their real motivations are. At the same time it would be unwise to disregard such books completely. Clearly “mistakes were made” and when they were made Mr. McClellan was ...

Senator's Obama's view that as President of the United States he would be willing to talk to so-called enemies of the US seems to have remained a topic of controversy. First it was Senator Clinton who termed it as "naive". Now we have conservative columnists lamenting that Senator Obama's gaffe has become policy. There are really two issues here. One, what is Senator Obama's actual stand on the issue? Second, should the US should be willing to talk to purported ...

Check out this hilarious video of a guy who wakes up after a seven year coma!

John Edwards' soon to be endorsement of Senator Obama is a good example of too little too late. It seems obvious that Senator Edwards was waiting to make sure he picks the ultimate likely nominee to back. His fear of backing the wrong candidate probably resulted in him waiting too long to make the call. His endorsement so late in the game comes across as an opportunistic move to do just enough (so as not to be deemed insignificant) ...

Ravi Krishna Reddy, formerly bay area based techie has returned to India to take the plunge into politics in India. He is contesting from Jayanagar in Bangalore as an independent candidate. Considering the sorry state of Karnataka politics the entry of some fresh blood can't do any harm. He has managed to garner some decent press and raise some money, most of it over the internet to support his campaign. As per his bio, he was the former President (2005) ...

The victory in Pennsylvania is being hailed by Hillary fans as "turning the tide". The victory might be a turning of the tide, but unfortunately it is the wrong turn. It is the turn that saw the Clintons resorting to Karl Rove style TV ads. It is the turn that helps spread and re-inforce a slew of myths such as: white working class Americans will not vote for Obama, America is not ready for a black President, Obama can't win ...