Monday, July 06, 2009

HILLARY CLINTON

Karzai Could Still Hire Begala, for Whatever That's Worth

It doesn't really matter if James Carville didn't check with Hillary Clinton before signing on as a campaign consultant to Afghan presidential challenger Ashraf Ghani, who is running against incumbent president Hamid Karzai. Carville's longtime ties to Clinton, and Clinton's role as secretary of state, will create the widespread impression that Ghani has the implicit backing of the United States government.

There have been persistent reports of growing U.S. irritation with Karzai; Carville's work to elect a rival will only add credibility to those reports. This isn't the first time that Carville has gotten involved in foreign elections, and he is seen as a de facto endorsement; his work for Israeli Labor party leader Ehud Barak a decade ago was seen as a not-so-subtle White House rebuke of Benjamin Netanyahu.

It's a free country, and political consultants can work for the clients they choose. But when longtime, trusted advisers take sides in other countries' elections, it's not unfair for those countries to interpret that work as an implicit endorsement.

07/06 09:15 AMShare