Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's recent offhand compliment to US vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has created quite a flutter in the real and the virtual world.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's recent offhand compliment to US vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has created quite a flutter in the real and the virtual world.
During his meeting with Palin in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Zardari called her 'gorgeous' and said "now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you."
And when Zardari was asked to keep shaking hands with Palin for the cameras, he said, "If he's (the aide) insisting, I might hug."
In the virtual world blogs have been dedicated to the meeting . One such blog is titled Zardari flirts with Sarah Palin calling her gorgeous and offers to hug and gives details of the Zardari Palin encounter.
"I do not mean to suggest that this is in anyway a crime, but being the President of Islamic Republic of Pakistan there are some protocols that should be adhered to in an effort to uplift the respect and dignity of Pakistan and to the office he has been assigned," wrote a blogger called teethmaestro .
He also claimed to have warned about such a faux pas in an earlier post. As suspected from my earlier post where I shuddered at the thought of what Asif Ali Zardari might serve up to Washington during his trip to attend the UN General Assembly, well the games have begun... .
Several jokes are doing the rounds on the meeting and Facebook has dedicated two groups to the encounter. A group called 'Zardari should marry Sarah Palin for the sake of world peace' has enrolled 13 members so far.
"Well critics can go on and on but I feel His Excellency Honourable President of Pakistan should marry Sarah Palin for the greater good of humanity and ... this matrimony will stop the incursion of US forces in Pakistan", wrote the creator of the group.
Another member of the group accused Zardari Palin of colour coordinating their clothes and said polo races may soon be witnessed in the White House. Another group created on Facebook just for fun has dedicated a song on the Zardari Palin encounter.
Instep magazine dedicated a full page to the high profile meeting, citing some other such Pakistani encounters. The magazine quoted from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's biographer, Marcus Marby, who wrote about Rice's meeting with Pakistan's former prime minister Shaukat Aziz in his book 'Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power'.
Aziz often boasted that there wasn't a woman he could not seduce. But as the story goes, the alleged charm didn't work on the US Secretary of State, the report in Instep read.
Yet, when Rice sat down with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who fancies himself as ladies man, Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone (He bragged to western diplomats, no less that he could conquer any woman in two minutes), the magazine quoted from Marby s book.
"(He tried) this Savile Row suited gigolo kind of charm: Pakistan is a country of rich traditions, staring in (Rice's) eyes, a participant at the meeting recalled. There was this test of wills where he was trying to use all his charms on her as a woman, and she just basically stared him down. By the end of the meeting, he was babbling, The Pakistanis were shifting uncomfortably."
The magazine also wrote about late former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's alleged legendary affair with Husna Sheikh and General Yahya Khan's association with Pakistan's nightingale Noor Jehan.
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