MR. 100%

Give me all the Power!

The Financial Times reports that Asif Ali Zardari "was suffering from severe psychiatric problems as recently as last year, according to court documents filed by his doctors."

The documents claim that Zardari "was diagnosed with a range of serious illnesses including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder in a series of medical reports spanning more than two years."

A New York psychologist said that Zardari "was unable to remember the birthdays of his wife and children, was persistently apprehensive and had thought about suicide."

If true, the reports are sad as they would indicate that Zardari experienced great trauma in prison. More importantly, they are also dangerous as Zardari, if elected president today, would hold a fairly powerful position, which includes chairmanship of Pakistan's National (nuclear) Command Authority.

But below most of the juicy details, the article states that Zardari's lawyers used "the medical diagnoses to argue successfully for the postponement of a now-defunct English High Court case in which Pakistan's government was suing him over alleged corruption."

In other words, this could be a case of Zardari's lies coming back to haunt him. It's plausible that he concocted psychiatric reports of trauma and mental illness to prevent himself from having to come before a UK court. A year and a half ago, he was battling corruption charges in multiple countries. Little did he know that by today, his wife would be dead, he'd be the leading candidate for Pakistan's presidency, and all his corruption cases would be dropped (the Swiss just closed their last case yesterday). So the story (an insanity plea of sorts, but not quite) was worth it then. Let's see how it impacts him now.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c186d52-72f0-11dd-983b-0000779fd18c.h...