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The size of the alleged fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election was the Story of the Day. Hamid Karzai in Kabul makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the purported vote rigging in next-door Teheran, look like a piker. According to the United Nations, almost one vote out of three cast for Karzai was a phony, over 990,000 of them. All three networks had a correspondent file from Kabul on the prospects of scheduling a do-over election against challenger Abdullah Abdullah. Yet none of the newscasts led with Afghanistan. ABC kicked off with its in-house opinion poll on Barack Obama's popularity. NBC picked up on a story from The New York Times about the President's fundraising from Wall Street fat cats. CBS went tabloid, leading with legal trouble for the parents of Colorado's fake balloon boy castaway.

How corrupt was the election in Afghanistan? CBS' Mandy Clark called it "staggering." NBC's Richard Engel found Karzai's government "increasingly unstable and weak." ABC's Nick Schifrin quoted the Taliban's condemnation of the Kabul regime as "a slave and a puppet to the west" adding that "already the political vacuum is helping fuel the insurgency." Back at the White House, ABC's Jake Tapper reported that Amb Karl Eikenberry had been "negotiating furiously" trying to persuade Karzai to accept either a run-off election or a coalition government with his rival Abdullah. The diplomat is "now confident" that Karzai has agreed.

Perhaps Commander-in-Chief Obama will not have to decide whether to commit extra troops to Afghanistan after all. His decision may be moot, ABC's Tapper pointed out. The Pentagon will not implement its "clear, hold and build" counterinsurgency if the Kabul regime cannot be called legitimate. "If they do not have a partner that can do the holding and the building, then they cannot pursue that strategy."

Andrew Tyndall 10/20/09 9:11:53 pm

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