It seems from the comments Foreign Policy collects here that the Department of State miscalculated the outcome of the elections in Pakistan. They certainly weren't in a position to extract reliable information from the wet-behind-the-ears election monitoring team that parachuted in the week of the vote.

But the conclusion from the two elections discussed here would seem to be that the folks in charge of figuring out what's going to happen -- and dare I say preparing for that outcome -- either don't do that first job very well or have some obstacle standing in their way of doing the second one.

Going further, if you look at the fact that the security situation forced out the established election monitors forcing a late-day substitution by a team which was no-doubt qualified but surely poorly prepared, and you combine that with the fact that State is sounding pretty surprised that Musharraf's party lost so badly, it makes you wonder if maybe State was sort of accepting -- or maybe relying on -- the fact that the Musharraf government was going to fix the count.

Or maybe it's like the situation in Palestine, where the State Department oddly sort of stepped out of its body and looked on dispassionately as the election they pushed for blew up in their faces with the selection of Hamas as the new government. Maybe we just saw Musharraf, the repository of hopes and millions since 9/12, as an unstoppable ally, even though his service in this role had been spotty at best.

I have a guess that it is something between these. There is an expression, "cockeyed optimist" that signals a person who sees the cloud's silver lining even as that cloud is producing enough rain to drown him. Meanwhile, we've all talked a lot about the lack of realism in this administration's aspirational policies about democracy promotion and other "wishing into being" policies. I'm generally a supporter of idealism when it serves as the fuel in a vision, driving to new heights and putting strength behind each step up the ladder. This doesn't feel like that. In both these cases, a bad (for the State Department) outcome seemed assured. In Pakistan, either Musharraf would cheat and win and our ally would have no credibility left, or he would play fair and lose, and the basket with all our eggs would be gone. (A third possibility was also bad, which was that catastrophic violence would mar the election.) How didn't we prepare for this? Who's minding the store?