Fog of deceit in Pakistan

Oops. We just found out that Benazir Bhutto actually died after trying to change CDs in her SUV while driving and accidentally electrocuting herself while drinking a cherry limeade from Sonic.

The Pakistani government regrets the error.

That's about how stumbling and stupid and dishonest the Musharraf government has been in its ever-changing, ever-more-lame official explanations for how Bhutto died.

First she was shot. Then she was killed by shrapnel. Then she died when she hit her head on the sunroof -- somehow leaving massive amounts of blood behind. Come on.

That last claim was so wildly implausible that Pakistan's Interior Ministry reversed itself Wednesday on the finding. Spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said he merely was relating the sunroof conclusions from doctors who examined Bhutto's body: "I was just narrating the facts, you know, and nothing less nothing more."

Sure you were.

The thing is, the idiots in the Interior Ministry didn't account for the fact that the massive crowd of Bhutto supporters on hand the day she was killed might have cameras and video equipment trained on her.

One video in particular shows her being shot at close range.

And not from the Texas School Book Depository.

Too bad her family's and supporters' sensibilities -- or maybe the police -- won't allow for a thorough post-mortem. Sadly, a lack of scientific evidence, combined with some people's propensity for pathological lying, may obscure for all time what really happened.

The government may be trying to obscure the truth either to hide its own ineptness in protecting Bhutto -- or to conceal complicity in her death.

Now, Musharraf -- nearly a week after Bhutto's assassination -- has requested the help of Scotland Yard to look into her death. He assures that the investigators "will solve all the confusion" regarding the circumstances of her death.

But how likely is that? Too much grass already has grown under the collective feet of Pakistani authorities to expect anything meaningful out of any investigative body, even Scotland Yard, because of the layers of chicanery we've already seen unfold. Remember, the Interior Ministry initially rejected Scotland Yard's help with a Bhutto probe. How helpful do you think ministry officials will be now?

Also, Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has called for a United Nations investigation into his wife's death. That prompts an interesting question; Where is the world body amid all this?

Probably still plodding along in its last investigation into a political assassination -- the 2005 slaying of Lebanese President Rafiq Hariri. Its status? Last month, a site was selected to set up an international court to try suspects. The court will move into the building sometime in 2009.

Whatever happened to swift justice?

The more Pakistan's government lies and dances, the worse it and Musharraf will appear. And the more paranoid the Pakistani people will be.