Word: pakistani
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...Meetings between Pakistani and American leaders are traditionally staid and predictable, although some Pakistanis are fond of recalling an apocryphal 1963 exchange between John F. Kennedy and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto - father of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to whom Zardari was married. Impressed by the then Foreign Minister, who would become Prime Minister before being deposed by a U.S.-backed military dictator in 1977 and later executed, Kennedy is alleged to have said, "If you were an American, you would be in my Cabinet." Bhutto is alleged to have answered, "Be careful, Mr. President. If I were an American...
...Pakistani newspapers ran prominent accounts of the "embarrassing" incident, while news anchors smirked after airing the footage. On Geo TV, a popular Urdu-language network, Zardari's words were delicately termed a "light and open exchange of remarks" before the short clip ran with blow-by-blow commentary. A subsequent version ran with an Urdu ballad playing in the background...
...being Pakistan, attention inevitably turned to how the event was being covered in neighboring India. Times Now television introduced the clip with the words "Pakistani President Asif Zardari seems to be a big fan of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, but his first meeting with her has critics saying that he was completely a bit out of line." Strap lines across the top of the screen blared "Pak President Out of Line with Palin," "Zardari Shocks with Sexist Remark" and "Zardari Ignores Diplomatic Propriety...
...criticism was echoed by leading Pakistani feminists. "I feel it's absolutely shameful and a disgrace," says Tahira Abdullah, a prominent women's rights activist. "It is against diplomatic protocol. And he is supposed to be mourning the loss of his illustrious and so-called beloved wife. Instead, he's flirting with [Palin] in public. He should apologize to her and to Pakistanis...
...While many reactions have been hostile, some Pakistanis have laughed off the exchange as nothing more than a source of inconsequential merriment. But the country's religious conservatives are unlikely to be so forgiving. A previous inappropriate encounter between a leading Pakistani male politician and an American female politician was seized on by political opponents in Parliament: Condoleezza Rice biographer Marcus Mabry described in pitiless detail an abortive charm offensive by former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on the U.S. Secretary of State, after Aziz had allegedly told diplomats that "he could conquer any woman in two minutes...