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CBS' Sheila MacVicar saw police paddywagons fill with "young, old, parliamentarians, party officials, men and women…Talking to the camera was enough to have the police descend." For ABC, Dan Harris (in the Martha Raddatz videostream) described the feel of the "tear gas in your eyes and in your nostrils." As part of NBC's report, Jim Maceda (in the Richard Engel videostream) showed us the deserted streets of Rawalpindi: "This is the total crackdown that Musharraf has promised." The climactic photo-op that crowned the day's stand-off had Bhutto's white SUV, loudspeaker blaring from its roof, careen towards the police's barbed wire line. "Brothers in the police stand back," Bhutto urged through a bullhorn. The police stood firm so she "turned back and surrendered to house arrest," narrated NBC's Richard Engel.
ABC's Raddatz was on hand to shout questions at Bhutto's surrounded car: "Would you like Musharraf to step down completely?" "Either accede to the people's demands or step down." Those demands are an end to the State of Emergency, his resignation from the military and adherence to the schedule for parliamentary elections. Raddatz was not convinced of the urgency behind Bhutto's bluster: "She is going slow. She does not want mass riots. She does not want to push Musharraf too far. They want to be gentle and go toward democracy slowly." At the same time when Musharraf agreed to February elections, Raddatz' unidentified diplomatic sources called that "a ruse, just a stalling tactic." CBS' MacVicar identified November 15th as a crucial deadline, the date on which Musharraf is required to resign from the army, to dissolve parliament and to call elections formally. "There is no indication that the general thinks November 15th is so important."
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