Terrorist kills 29 at hospital in Pakistan

A wounded boy outside the hospital, embedded by the AP

Yesterday, a suicide bomber in Pakistan blew himself up at a hospital, killing 29 people and wounding another 35. The Taliban claimed responsibility for this crime.

Let me repeat that. The Taliban (aka Al Qaeda) attacked not a police station, military post, or a government building but a hospital. And this happened not in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, but Pakistan. Is there any doubt about who we are fighting, and that terrorism was not caused by the US invasion or Iraq or Afghanistan, but the other way around?

I am also mentioning this because no one seems to care. The major media barely gave it any mention at all, and it didn't make any headlines in the West. It was also generally ignored in the blogosphere, except by some right wing sites such as LGF. That's a shame, because it shouldn't be a political issue. But that sad truth is that some don't like to discuss events like this because they don't fit with the leftist media's world view; the United States can't be blamed, and it was a despicable criminal act against a government allied with the United States. Middle East "expert" Juan Cole, for example, this week strongly criticized Bush's support of Pakistani president Musharraf (with some justification) but then didn't mention this attack at all. Curious, isn't it?

Andrew Sullivan wrote yet another post (I think we are into the high-hundreds by now) about how the United States are the bad guys because we used stress positions on some prisoners. I don't even think he really writes them anymore; he can just copy and paste from his old articles. That is bad, but the weird thing is the real bad guys do things like blow up hospitals. That's what's forgotten in all this noise.

Speaking of noise, there's another reason why it's getting little mention. The leftist blogosphere is literally freaking out over a far more important issue (to them): one poll has McCain 5 points above Obama, which gives McCain a solid lead in the electoral college. Some of these guys who track these things daily should really get a life; it's simply too early to take these polls seriously; we haven't even had the VP picks or the conventions yet. Yes, Obama's supporters are downplaying this, saying it's too early, and doesn't matter, etc. But the strange thing is they are saying it now when their man is down, while they've been ignoring this conventional wisdom for the past several months while he was on top! The panic is universal; Daily Kos, Balloon Juice, as well as all the usual suspects are riled up. Including, of course, the aforementioned Andrew Sullivan and Juan Cole. Of course. Because one poll is so important.



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